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like a freight train. we re seeing record-breaking and terrifying storm surges throughout florida and ft. myers, the water is so high pickup trucks are almost completely submerged. water levels have risen more than 6 feet in the last switch ho seven hours. let s get to tom sater in the cnn weather center. an updated forecast should come any minute now. what should we expect? it was just handed to me. forgive me for reading off. we still have a category 4 hurricane and five miles east of punta gorda. it will stay at hurricane strength through orlando. this will rake the entire peninsula. we had grove city a gust of 128. when we talk about the southern kind here, a better picture on radar will give an indication what we re looking at. here is the new track. keeps it as a 4 of course now moving inland but notice it s a category one. it will lose strength now that it s interacting with a land mass. that s typical. however, the winds have expanded now as these storms do. ....
I fear the pictures from naples and st. myers. it will be a saddening scene tomorrow. this band 10 inches of rain will lift northward as the storm lifts and that s where the converging sets in, jake, and that s where the heavy rain sets in. however, it s not over with. i told you how much rain they ve had in the last couple weeks, the ground is completely saturated. the soil type in florida is only absorb so much. water runs quickly across it. we re getting good wind gusts. i just mentioned the 120. here is the problem. the root systems of trees are going to be extremely weak and saturated with rain and more rain to come. you toss this band of rainfall on that area and then you toss a swath of tropical storm forced winds well over 350 miles, you re going to have tens and tens and tens of thousands of trees down, downing power lines. we got over a million without power now. that s just the beginning. water rescues, power outages across the entire peninsula of florida. as a meteorologist ....