eye that continues to track farther to the north, now in portions of georgia, crossing that state line. when it comes to the impacts down the line here, again, over the next day or so, still dealing with as you saw where jose is that inundation of water across parts of the big bend area, stretching down into places as far south as tampa. we have seen multiple roads like baseshore boulevard completely covered. we have seen i-275 in tampa completely covered with water. and that storm surge conditions are going to continue for a little while longer. we re going to start to look, though, to the southeastern coast of the united states. georgia and the carolinas for impacts here as this system continues working across the state of georgia. still remaining likely a cat 1 as it crosses over savannah and moving over charleston and offshore. between now and then, as we get into friday, it will eventually be out of our hair. between now and then, we ll see still the same kind of impacts. the cl
per hour, charleston, 71 miles per hour. these numbers are isolated power outages, a lot of trees down, coastal flooding, but places like savannah and charleston, you re going to deal with storm surge and we re expecting anywhere from 2 to 5 feet. if you think that s nothing compared to what they dealt with, places like charleston could potentially end up in the top ten of water levels on record for that high tide time is happening around 8:24 p.m. tonight. unfortunately we re also going to see some of the worst storm surge potential at the same time as the system gets closer to folks in that area. savannah, 7:37 is the high tide time. both time frames are crucial when it comes to the storm surge people are dealing with in those locations and up and down the coast. we have a tornado watch. this has been in effect all morning long. that s going to last until 3:00 p.m. parts of florida, extending into southern portions of georgia, but what you see from savannah
already in georgia, and that s where we begin in georgia. nbc s lindsey reiser joins me now from savannah, lindsey, what s the biggest concern where you are right now? reporter: chris, we have seen on and off heavy rain, some stronger winds. you can see some white caps here on the savannah river. we are actually expected to see the worst of the winds later this evening. the governor of georgia declared a state of emergency, and he gave us a briefing here on what some areas of georgia have already seen when it entered the state as a category 1 hurricane this morning. let s go ahead and listen to what he said. we had multiple counties in the affected area that are seeing winds in the 70 to 80 miles per hour and some gusts up to 90. we know by radar it looks like we may potentially have in some areas 9 to 10 inches of rain. the good thing is this is a narrow storm and is very fast-moving, so it s not sitting on us and dumping even more rain than that at one time.
savannah. people are going to want to be in a safe place as we go through the day today and into tonight. as we get to the carolinas tonight and early thursday, have multiple ways to get severe weather information through your phone, through apps, through a weather radio, connected through local media as well. and how would you assess what things have been like on the dirty side of the storm? well, you know, the east side of the storm always has a lot of impacts. so that s where we tend to get the strongest storm surge, we had storm sturge along much of the west coast of florida. that s the biggest risk for tornadoes. the highest risk of heavy rainfall is on the west side of the center. so it is going to be spread across different locations depending where you are. even if you re west of the center, valdosta, georgia, columbia, south carolina, wilmington, fayetteville, north carolina, potential for significant impacts as we go through the day today and into tonight. we talked abo
reporter: another positive factor, in addition to it being fast-moving, it s happening during the daytime hours, not nighttime, which is obviously safer for folks. so here in savannah, the city has stopped operations. schools have gone virtual. there was talk of a curfew overnight. it doesn t look like that s happening at this point. things could change throughout the day. and also, we re expected to see, even though it will weaken by the time it gets to us to a tropical storm, we could still see wind gusts 50 to 60 miles an hour. so still not in the clear yet in this area, chris. lindsey reiser, thank you for that. msnbc s josé diaz-balart is about two hours south in crystal river where water levels could stay dangerously high for hours to come. high tide hits at 4:30. jose, i ve watched you move from place to place to place. we ve seen those waters rise. tell me what the situation is on the ground right now. reporter: chris, it s so good to see you. this has been an evolving