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forecasters expect ian to intensify into a major hurricane in the next 24 hours before it makes landfall somewhere along florida s west coast. ian poses a formidable storm surge threat for the tampa area. let s begin with chad myers, he has the latest hurricane center advisory. and chad, something that i found interesting here, officials were saying there is a higher than usual unpredict ability about how strong this storm will be and where it is going to land. true. and i think we re getting we re anxious. we want this to be perfect. we want all of the models to line up and say this is what is going to happen and that hasn t happened. a few models on the right and the left, not really agreeing. so an 80 mile per hour storm at the 11:00 advisory two minutes ago. the storm does move across cuba overnight and into the southwestern part of florida with winds and waves already on shore by 8:00 wednesday morning. there will already be wind. but the storm is still growing ....
There will already be wind. but the storm is still growing. where does it go from right there? that is the question. the cone gets very large. does it go left or right? because that makes an entirely different forecast for everyone if it stays out into the ocean a little bit, in the gulf or does it turn to the right. we have rays there, the tampa surge, possibly five to ten. but that is all dependent on where the storm center goes. here is the wave forecast. boris, 30 foot waves in the gulf of mexico. 30 feet. now they re not going to come on shore at 30. but they could come on shore at 10 to 12 for sure. and then possibly getting up there toward the big bend with the rest of that surge. they ll be surge in tampa. there will be surge in port charlotte. and now if the storm, and we don t want this to happen, if the storm is south of tampa, there will be inverse surge. so all of the numbers that you see here, all of the forecasts could change with a change in the track. ....
Cynthia? maya, we re going to be back to you throughout. thank you very much for that report. joining us now is nbc s meteorologist steve sosna, who has been tracking irma s path. steve, what s the latest? well, what we have for you is still a category 2 storm, which is nothing to sneeze at here. it is not as strong as it was in the keys, but it s still delivering impacts that are going to be very disruptive and just down right dangerous, especially now that we don t have daylight across central florida. 66 miles per hour at the international airport in orlando. 63 miles per hour in lakeland. the center now is getting close to tampa, so the wind has gone from a westerly direction to more of a north to mostly direction, and eventually it s going to start pivoting down from the north and northwest. so that s going to be signaling that the eye is passing north of you. then that water from the gulf of mexico can start to come on in here. so we ve had it easy from tampa ....