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CNN Sunday Morning

Hurricane Michelle to Make Landfall in Cuba

Aired November 04, 2001 - 07:18   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: Hurricane Michelle now a Category Four storm with Cuba in her sights. Where is she now, and is the storm strengthening for that?

Let's go to CNN meteorologist Jill Brown -- Jill.

JILL BROWN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hello, Jeanne.

We have a very strong hurricane here. Again, a major hurricane, and we've seen sort of a quiet season; but it's not over until the end of November. So this not really too much out of the ordinary; but a late-season hurricane.

It is Michelle, centered at 21 North, 82.7 West. That places it not 210 miles -- I'm sorry, we need to update this -- only a 140 miles, now, south of Havana, Cuba. Winds are a 135 miles per hour. It should maintain that strength until it makes landfall, which could be around the Isle of Youth within the next few hours. And then during the day, later today, it should cross over the island of Cuba and come back into the Florida Straits about 1:00 Monday morning.

You notice on this track, it should miss Florida. It is picking up some speed, moving northeast at 12 miles per hour. It's sort of staying on the track that it has forecast, which is good news. And while this is all good news for Florida, that it should miss Florida, a slight deviation from this track would mean that we'll have stronger winds and heavier rain and perhaps even landfall. So we'll have to watch this, still, very closely.

You can see here the eye is not discernible now. There are some upper level winds out of the west that are bringing the clouds over the top of the eye. So while you can't see it, this is still a very strong hurricane. It's not weakening, but it's not likely to strengthen a whole lot anymore.

With this strength of hurricane, the biggest threat would be the strong winds and also the storm surge, which could be up to 20 feet, and the very heavy rain that we'll get. And most of that will be affecting Cuba.

Now who's next on the list? Of course, that would be the Florida Keys getting some heavy rain; again, the outskirts of this storm system. And then the Bahamas could see a direct hit. But probably this will be a weaker hurricane by that point. Let me show what's going on here as we move into Florida. You're not far enough away to even stay out of the rain at this point. And again, that hurricane is still south of Cuba. So as it gets closer, the winds will pick up, we'll see more heavy rain, and it could be very nasty here for the next, about 24 hours, and then tomorrow morning as it moves away to the northeast.

Things should improve. But again, we'll have to watch the track to make sure it's going to stay on that track that keeps it away from Florida -- the actual center of the hurricane. But we will see some of the effects, and we're already getting the rain.

So now we have hurricane warnings in effect for the Florida Keys and evacuations are in progress. A hurricane warning by the way, means hurricane conditions are expected within the next 24 hours. Now, that may sound odd, considering that this hurricane is not expected to track over Florida. But again, being close enough -- while we may not see sustained hurricane-force winds, we should have hurricane-force wind gusts, definitely some heavy rain, and possibly even enough storm surge to cause some problems.

So the Florida Keys, maybe some problems. The Bahamas are next. But today it's Cuba.

So we'll keep you advised. The next update comes in about three hours.

Marty, back to you.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you very much, Jill.

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