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Now i ll see you tomorrow evening. I m kaitlan collins. This is the source hurricane helene is about to slam into florida and i expected to make landfall and just a couple of hours from now, it s now an extremely dangerous category four storm and winds are now up to 140 miles per hour. If it stays this strong, it ll be the strongest storm to ever make landfall in florida s big bend region. That s the area that we re keeping a close eye on. This hour, more than half 1 million people there have already lost power. And forecasters are predicting tonight that the storm surge in some areas could be unsurvivable reaching as high as 20 feet surges and high winds were alread ....
Those tropical rains will move along with it as we see with the rainfall. look at the rainfall associated with it, right on the coast. and you ve got to get the large totals, 10 to 15 inches of rain, some places more, but with time that spreads northward. even if you re not on the coast you get the big-time rainfall amounts and dangerous at times. the rain mainly along the track, to the east of the track in the rain bands. we ve talked about this, the water levels and we ve seen some pictures of the roads underwater. a dangerous situation when it comes to the storm surge. look at the values, three to six feet in along the plaquemines, and lafourche and the terrebonne parish. harrison ton hancock county, three to five feet. as we look at this, it may not look like your typical hurricane. we have hurricane force winds, but all the moisture is headed that way, rain bands dangerous and all is moving north so we ....
Look at this wind field. tropical storm force winds extending out 175 miles. a strong system. so without a doubt, we have some time to go with this. we still need to be careful. flow around this system like this. you ll still have on shore flow on some of the beaches and the panhandle. the water will be slow to come down. some places more water on the way. think about how large this system is. we have tropical storm warnings on the atlantic portion of this storm from georgia and into the carolinas with some of this on-shore. what are the hazards? the rainfall, a dangerous situation with the rainfall. when you have the tropical systems a lot of moisture around the center and in the rain bands. so 6-10 inches of rain potentially. we re moving, the downpours are incredible. with time you ll see 4 to 6 inches in some of the other areas that will cause a problem with the wind and the rain. that is where we can see some trees down, getting into georgia. ....
Let s bring him back in by phone. riding the storm out here in wilmington. i believe you are from oklahoma. but you re here in wilmington. tell us remind the viewers of what you re seeing as the storm moves? we have 70, 80 maybe 90 miles per hour gusts. in the rain bands. and starting to deteriorate as the eye wall starts to move in an hour and a half. it s moving really slow. it will be here for a while. the eye wall usually come cranking through and it s over with kwkly. this will be hammering us for quite a bit. the impact will be significant from the wind damage. it s also important to get a sense of that eye. the eye of the storm. help our viewers understand what happens when the eye passes over. everything we re peernexperienc ....
sounds like we re having some more audio issues with jack. we ll get him back. you can follow noaa at noaa on twitter for the updates. we have the latest from meteorologist karen maginnis in the weather center. jack was in the rain bands, in that that weather. this is a big rain event. it is. it has been 12 years since we ve seen anything like this, and that was ike. i wanted to give you the latest statistics regarding this. it is a strong category 2 hurricane. 111 miles per hour. that s when we see it switch over to a category 3. at this point, that is not going to make a lot of difference because we don t have anything steering this hurricane in any direction. there is no shear. water temperature is conducive to this strengthening. it is powerful. you can see it pretty much engulfs the entire coastline of ....