destructive winds as a category three hurricane. making it the most powerful storm to hit the area in 120 years. meteorologist pedram javaheri tracking michael live from the cnn weather center this morning as it moves into the carolinas. pedram, good morning. >> good morning, dave. michael is moving into south carolina in the last hour or so. still with it tropical storm force winds. the sustained winds of 50 miles per hour and gusts up to 65 miles per hour. we have that dropping with below hurricane threshold. improving conditions with the winds across the region. heavy rainfall in place. we have a tornado watch in place across the northern tier of south carolina. it does include parts of myrtle beach here. still seeing enough instability and rotation with the spin-up of tornadoes as it moves north. heavy rainfall expected through thursday. as we go our way toward thursday evening and overnight, this moves offshore.