Page 8 - Warm Ocean News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

It is actually taking advantage of the warm ocean waters from the gulf -- the gulf stream. that gives it the fuel necessary to strengthen, to deepen, and become this powerful northeaster that we have been forecasting for several days in advance. we call it a bomb cyclone because it meets these set of parameters meteorologists use dropping a certain amount of pressure in 24 hours. it gives us indication how strong the storm will be. the threats going forward, heavy snow, strong winds, coastal flooding, power outages and can't forget about travel disruptions. already, 3,000 flights cancel ord de...

That's good news. but what's new this morning, what's important for our viewers is that the national hurricane center has just hoisted hurricane watches. that's basically for the coastal regions from st. petersburg, florida, right through the big ben region. we're talking about the west coast of florida. this is significant that the hurricane watch exists because they see, just like the meteorologists on the cnn weather team, the potential of tropical storm elsa restrengthening. it is now over open water. it's no longer over western cuba where it loses its heating source and it gets disrupted ...

Precautions. cnn meteorologist derek van dam is in ft. myers. derek, is it strengthening as the comes close to the florida coast? >> it is because it has the warm ocean waters of the gulf of mexico, jim. and a good point, too, talking about tampa. they just tweeted out that tampa bay international airport will suspend all commercial operations from 5:00 p.m. this evening. so something to take note if you're flying in or out of that particular area. where i'm located now, lee county, fort t. myers over my l shoulder, this is one of the counties under a state of emergency. kind of the calm befor...

Eyes. in this case we have an ocean that's very warm. the global oceans have warmd up by a degree so far. it's a little less than 2 degrees fahrenheit. we know for each degree of warming, of the ocean surface, you get an increase of 7% in the maximum sustained winds of these very strong storms. that might not sound that big, but the destructive potential of the storm goes as the third power of the wind speed. that's a 23% increase in destructive potential. we saw that. we saw that in the bahamas. the definite station from that wind field. and now what we're seeing is another aspect of that. be...

Speaking is that you're getting higher wind speeds, more rainfall, and you're having kind of this force that's being fed by warmer seas gain speed and gain intesty and push water onto land with much more destructive power. >> i see you shaking your head there, mike. i've got to ask you because you chased storms for a very long time, and obviously there have always been hurricanes. but when you see the devastation that left the bahamas, what is the link you see between warming oceans, temperatures, and the strength of these hurricanes? >> right. well, this is what i do know, don. hurricanes are...