max winds start to wind down we ll still have the problem of watching numerous tornadoes during the day today throughout this region and just to kind of recap with the storm surge, right now about five feet, one of our weather producers sent me a message the hurricane center looks like they ve dropped some of the peak storm surge. that s fantastic. we re happy. when we tell you 10 to 16 feet. that s the maximum possible that could happen and they re saying values are lower than that. we ll take it. if we can get less storm surge damage all the better, so this was the forecast that was out, the 7 to 16 feet but haven t heard any reports of that yet. likely if it s happening there s that steinhatchee i was mentioning, it s probably going to be the highest storm surge when all is said and done. this evening, you re now under hurricane warnings savannah, georgia, to brunswick and heading up to hilton head island. probably didn t expect that when you woke up. now your wind gust forecast is
we re focusing a lot right now on the wind. because the wind is the life threatening thing that s happening now. about an hour or two after the eye goes north, even worse than the wind, is going to be the life threatening portion with the storm surge. we ll talk about that as it begins. i got all our weather producers are monitoring all our tidal gauges. as soon as that comes up, i will let you know immediately. it has not yet. the northern eye, this is where the strongest winds are with this storm. look at the purple in here, this thunderstorm right here. that s intense. this is eight miles now from marco island. these images come in about every four to five minutes too. so we ll wait for that new image to refresh there. and the thing that we were pointing out, the thing that is disconcerting, as we go up the coast with this, it s not moving due north. we don t think it s going straight up over marco island. the way it s been going, this way. up like this.
lost contact with the singapore airport. the altitude roughly about 32,000 feet. now there are reports that the pilot asked to ascend to around 38,000 feet. and this is crucial. let me explain why. i m going to step off screen here just to show you an image that one of our weather producers have brought up recently for us. and this is what is called a turbulence forecast. it highlights areas where turbulence is expected to take place over various flight patterns across the world. it also reports on current conditions. this is the time, or roughly about the time of the last point of contact, which was roughly about 7:25 sunday morning local time. now, this little box here indicates that there were thunderstorm clouds towering to about 53,000 feet in an area where turbulence was extremely likely. this is java just off the island of where the plane actually took
and, tim, dave, i know you re a professional as tip was. but i wanted to just show a picture to our viewers to sort of bring home this point i want to make according to radar scope. i want to show you of the dots on the screen, each of these dots to our viewers represents a weather chaser. all right. each of those red dots represents a weather chaser in the area of last week s tornado. there are a lot of dots. weather producers say there could have been three to four more times chasers out there than the red dots show. the screen is littered with them. you know, dave, you know the storms. you don t want to interfere with traffic and you no he what they re doing. are there a lot more people throughout that are adrenaline junkies that don t though what they re doing and putting other people s lives at risk if not they re own by doing this? yeah. i think it s definitely something that s going to have to be addressed here in the very near future.
and nature of trying to get data from these incredibly druktive tornadoes. and, tim, dave, i know you re a professional as tip was. but i wanted to just show a picture to our viewers to sort of bring home this point i want to make according to radar scope. i want to show you of the dots on the screen, each of these dots to our viewers represents a weather chaser. all right. each of those red dots represents a weather chaser in the area of last week s tornado. there are a lot of dots. weather producers say there could have been three to four more times chasers out there than the red dots show. the screen is littered with them. you know, dave, you know the storms. you don t want to interfere with traffic and you no he what they re doing. are there a lot more people throughout that are adrenaline junkies that don t though what they re doing and putting other people s lives at risk if not they re own by doing this? yeah. i think it s definitely something that s going to have to be addr