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everyone extremely concerned. that area hasn t completely recovered from hurricane ian. now you re seeing another storm. but this is how hurricane season is. sometimes it s one after the other. as this one intensifies, we will be watching and waiting. evacuations again under way for ten counties. 32 school districts now here in florida have been closed down so that people can take their kids to safety. we will update you on the very latest on this storm and what people are doing to prepare for it and those who are evacuating as well. phil? sara and derek, we will be going back. this is not hyperbole folks. these are the warnings. we re demonstrating it because it s important. idalia a category 1 hurricane. across the globe, could vladimir putin attend the funeral of his ally turned foe wagner chief yevgeny prigozhin. live to russia with what we re learning. new overnight, we re seeing and hearing from detained american paul whalen for the first time in years as he is wrongfully d
potential for tornadic activity. that s the other thing. people are concerned about tornadic activity. the last time when hurricane ian came to this side of florida, people first were alerted it was coming. there was a tornado that showed up. so, there are a lot of things that can happen that are unpredictable in these storms because they do create their own weather, don t they? 100%. you have to look out for the wobbles. we talk about that so much. that is what is so crucial because the way that this storm is approaching the florida peninsula will run parallel. if we get an east ward jog or west ward jog, that puts major population densities at play. tampa bay, for instance, clearwater where we are located. if it goes further west, apalachicola, panama city. it s a game of miles. pay attention the forecast track. right now we have big bend cedar key. anywhere this will be a large storm as it continues to expand, intensify.
what people need to know is it strengthened to a hurricane officially at the 5:00 a.m. update this morning. one interesting thing to note as well is it is on its forward move. we re seeing that northerly progression at 14 miles per hour. that means it is picking up speed and will continue to do so before its landfall. now, look, it has a lot of open water to traverse first. and that water is extremely warm that will allow for what we call rapid intensification, a strengthening of the storm. we have seen this story play out time and time again, hurricane ian last year, we remember that. here is the latest radar. you can see how the western slopes of cuba are getting clobbered right now with heavy rain bands. havana included in that category 1 hurricane moving into the open waters of the southern gulf of mexico and will start to see those rain bands impact places like ft. myers, naples and into tampa as well. storm surge flooding, we have the red highlighted there, 8 to 12 feet, that s c
passing now, but throughout the day we ll continue to get this as the storm goes north towards florida and continues to pick up steam. patrick oppmann, we re glad you re okay. you gave the perfect example of what can happen and how quickly it can happen, which is why they want people to prepare and to evacuate in now ten counties here in florida because that kind of activity is going to get more intense as the storm intensifies. thank you so much, patrick oppmann, there for us in havana cuba. we are going to eventually hear from a storm hunter who has been chasing this storm and trying to see just what it is like up close and personal as it barrels towards the state. we will have much more with our derek van dam, who is also tracking the storm here with all of his electronics and his smarts. we are going to now toss it back to phil who has incredible way to look at how strong this storm surge just might be.