off of the gulf coast there. we re not going to get a sense of it until tomorrow. but yes, it looks pretty path down in. and we ll be talking about this later in the hour. thanks, chris. and thank you for joining us. hurricane ian continues to create a swath of in made landfall just after 3:00 this afternoon in southwestern florida, near k o connor, a island off of the coast of fort myers. ian came ashore as a category four hurricane with 150 mile per hour winds. just a few miles per hour shy of a category five. only for hurricane stronger than that have made landfall in the united states ever. but it is not just the strength of the storm, it is the size. this is the view of hurricane in from the international space station this afternoon. just showing how massive the storm is. the national river describes in as battering the florida peninsula with tied and winds, and flooding. ian has just now weakened to a category two storm with maximum sustained winds of 105 miles
russia. we will look at how the vote could have a real impact on the war. canadians now are preparing for what could be the strongest storm ever to hit the eastern coast of nova scotia. we are tracking hurricane fiona at the cnn weather center. plus. walking out on court. having the chance to play with the likes of raf or novak in the past has been an amazing experience for me. tennis great roger federer gets ready to say good-bye to the sport. we have a look at the final match today. it s 10:00 a.m. across ukraine where occupied parts of the country are voting today on whether to become a part of russia. ukraine and the west call the referendums a sham. but, the votes could result in russia annexing about 15% of ukraine s territory already controlled by russian armed forces. vladimir putin s mobilization of 300,000 russians to join the fight is already underway across the country. video from social media shows families in the country s far east saying tearful good-byes
Operator, is joining us to discuss more details. we re seeing a wind shift. what are your biggest concerns going into the rest of the night? you guys have talked about here recently, especially the storm surge. we could be looking at up to 16 feet up there in cedar key like you guys were covering and already seeing the storm surge impacts down to clearwater beach as well. 4-6 feet of storm surge moving into tampa bay is what is forecast. and, again, we re already seeing some of those impacts. there on the video there from cedar key like you guys have been showing, potentially 16 feet. hurricane hermine, the category 1 several years ago, produced six feet of storm surge there. so we re expecting up to 16 16 feet, just incredible, um, you know, amount of storm surge and water we re expecting. ian: yeah, matt, we re staring at a live picture of the poorly-placed cadillac there on cedarky key up in cedar key
Which one of these counties and which part of the county does actually end up seeing the worst of this. when you re talking about the worst case scenario for surge, which is about up to 16 feet. jane: yeah, yeah, and that s the question the you take the storm surge and the wobble and the wind, that s not only a scenario that we re watching for the big bend, but even down into tampa and into st. pete clear water, you know. the change and the wind direction, how the storm comes up to the north is also going a play a role in where we re expecting to see the worst of the storm surge impacts there. tampa, bay, you know, very susceptible, the most vulnerable place in the country to take on storm surge and if we get things like up just right, now you re talking a really dangerous scenario for people who you know, in a lot of ways have been spared the worst in the last couple of times. ian: yeah, jane, i was just taking a closer look. does it appear that the right side of this fo
It has been for the last couple of days almost perfect. in where we thought it was going to make landfall along the big bend of florida. then we also have a trough that s going to interact with this storm. going to move very quickly up towards south georgia. south carolina, as a category 2 hurricane. so they have to be making their preparations now for a category 2 hurricane. heavy rainfall in the forecast, certainly 5 to 8 inches. the storm surge, the biggest storm surge impacts right now for the big bend of florida but that water is going to move well inland. you know, gainesville, where we have one of our reporters, we are seeing surge into tampa bay. so widespread impacts and then we also have the tornado risk, which is the potential for these rotating, you know, storms, tornadoes that form because of the counterclockwise motion and interaction with land. that tornado watch is good until this afternoon moving in towards georgia and the carolinas.