www.vitac.com tonight, more than a month after terrorists attacked boston, the city is coming together in this building to remember, to honor, and they are doing it all through rock and roll. i'm brooke baldwin, special cnn coverage starts right now. one of the voices boston hears tonight -- ♪ -- i'll talk with james taylor about the moment he heard about the bombings and what he'll say to the victims. love them very much. i'm innocent. >> the american mother behind bars in mexico opens up to cnn. and begs for her freedom. plus, the terrifying moment a train hits a truck. as the feds intercept letters possibly laced with ricin targeting michael bloomberg, new details about the threats inside.

good to see you, i'm brooke baldwin. it is so great to be back in the city of boston. you are watching special coverage here on cnn, where in a matter of hours, some of america's biggest named performers will be taking to the stage in that big building behind me, this is the td garden in boston. why are they here? it's a huge night, because it's all in tribute. six weeks after those two explosions, really, just rocked the city forever. what happened in those moments and in the days following the attacks at the finish line there

of the boston marathon on boylston street, quite literally, brought this city to a halt. not just for the man hunt for the suspects, but for the victims, some of whom lost their lives, many, many more lost their limbs, wounded and forever baring the scars of the senseless act. tonight, though, it is a night of celebration. it's a relief concert, boston strong, and those words carrying so much meaning for this city. and i just have to say if you've checked out the lineup, it's pretty impressive. ♪ ♪ more than a feeling ♪ just call out my name ♪ stand tough, stand tough ♪ i've seen fire and i've seen rain ♪ >> you have aerosmith, new kids

on the block, carole king, jimmy buffett, james taylor, just to name a few. i got to sit down with the legendary james taylor and we'll play that interview in a moment. he talked about being born in the city in a hospital where so many survivors were treated and will talk about some of the songs he's playing tonight. first, let me get you an update on the boston bombings, news just to cnn. it is unthinkable, this al qaeda magazine, it's called "inspire," once dubbed the "vanity fair" of terrorism, is devoting its latest issue to the boston bombings. i want you to take a look at this leaked excerpt. let me quote, american people, your security will not be attained by denying security to other peoples, attacking them, or oppressing them. your security is in the hands of the fools among you who rule you with oppression and aggression.

know that oppression and aggression come back upon the heads of those who use them. cnn terrorism analyst paul cruickshank joins me live from washington. paul, we talked so much the weeks around the boston bombings, i know about the "inspire" magazine, the article, basically a how to on the pressure cooker, how to build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom. what is the readership of this kind of magazine? >> the readership of this magazine, brooke, followers of al qaeda, people sympathetic to al qaeda's ideology in the united states in the english-speaking world. they are putting out a message to that following that they should launch attacks in the west. they shouldn't travel to places like yemen and pakistan, but they should stay home and launch attacks there. and they are going to put out the bomb making guidance, recipes, and so on, to help them with that, and that seems to be the case with the boston bombings. there's sort of opportunistically taking credit for this, saying we encouraging

these guys, gave them the instructions, and look what happened, and they are trying to inspire others to do the same, brooke. >> it's disgusting. and i know, as we mentioned, in this issue specifically of "inspire" magazine, there is a reference to what happened in boston. what specifically is the reference, other than taking credit, i suppose. >> well, they are taking credit because these brothers actually downloaded a bomb-making recipe from the first issue of "inspire" magazine, an issue that came out in the summer of 2010. they were also inspired by the rhetoric of one of the clerics linked to this group, so what they are doing is saying, yeah, we helped this. we helped make this happen, and they are trying to inspire others to do the same, brooke, but this is opportunistic. it's not like they had any actual physical connection to these two brothers. >> and this is the kind of thing, this is the magazine, that people can't shut down, can they?

>> it's very, very difficult to shut down, because they can put it online and it's causing increasing concern on both sides of the atlantic. the magazine and its bomb making recipes have been linked to multiple islamist terrorist plots. brooke? >> paul cruickshank, thank you so much. but i want to talk not as much about that, but really the reason why we're here in boston. again, the td garden hosting something like ten different bands and surprise gifts, two comedians, all talking about surviving and healing. and one of the biggest names to hit the stage here tonight is boston native james taylor, and in the days following that attack on boylston street, he was a huge inspiration for folks here. if you remember, he played "shower the people" among the thousands at m.i.t. in memoriam of officer sean collier, who was shot and killed during the hunt of the bomb suspects. ♪ you can play the game, you can

knock out the part ♪ ♪ though you know it wasn't written for you ♪ ♪ tell me how can you stand there with your broken heart ♪ >> just about a half hour ago, i talked to james taylor, actually talked about that moment specifically, and he told me a little bit about the message he has for this city and what tonight's concert, what these moments tonight here in boston, will mean for him. >> you're a massachusetts general baby. >> actually, i think i was born in boston lying in, it was called in those days. it may have morphed to brigham & women's in this day, but my dad was at mass general and boston city hospital when he was doing his internship and residency. so, we lived here. i was born here. and we lived here until, i

think, '51. then we moved down to chapel hill where you went to school. >> that's right. so, little would you know that many years later, fast forward to six weeks ago, amazing doctors, nurses, staff treated so many people that were in the bombings. how do you feel with all these bands coming together for such a big night? >> you know, i think it's the way we respond. i think don law, who's sort of a fixture, an institution here in boston. boston is his turf, and, you know, don called and said that he was putting together a concert, was i interested in playing, i said sure. i'm sure that, you know, i was talking to jimmy buffett earlier and he said, boston's been good to me and i didn't hesitate. and i'm sure that's the way everybody that's on the bill tonight responded.

>> no hesitation, just yes. >> absolutely. yeah. and, you know, the other thing is, you mentioning the hospitals and all the first responders and the community really -- everybody in boston just feels so bad about what happened and so concerned and so, you know, just like you get the feeling that anybody that you asked would do whatever they could to try to help the people who were injured and to try to sort of heal. try to help heal the town after this and the area, you know, boston's so, so special. and the marathon, too. >> quintessential boston experience, right? sox game during the day, come to the finish line. >> that's right. and it's such an inclusive and,

you know, sort of global event. it seems just, you know, how you could possibly want to target the boston marathon, where we cheer the plucky kenyan who overcomes the stacked deck of life and makes it over the finish line, or grandpa who's just made it through chemo and he's back in his running shoes again, or, you know, parents watching their children finish or children watching their parents finish, it's just -- really was the most inappropriate and really unfathomable kind of thing. so wrong. >> i was in washington for the inauguration, that was a celebratory event. i understand you reached out to the people in newtown and played a private concert there, and here you are in boston. it's you, it's music.

what is it about that that helps heal? >> yeah, i don't know. a lot of my songs were written to make me feel better. and sometimes that resinates with other people, too, you know. so you write a piece of music or a song that sort of has the purpose of seeing you through a tough time or putting something out there that you feel internally, and so it starts by something that basically a conversation with yourself and in some cases, you know, those songs like that resinate with other people and are useful. >> just a few other people. >> that's good. >> i've been humming "shower the people" all day, because i'm here, i was here covering the bombings, and i remember you playing at officer collier's

memorial with the thousands from all around the country, the officers that came to remember him. you're here tonight with a long-time friend, carole king, "you've got a friend," you wrote it, she made it a hit. what will you be singing tonight? >> we'll sing "sweet baby james" because it's got the line "stop bridge to boston." >> yes. >> and we'll do "shower the people." do "how sweet it is," which is a song that was originally done by marvin gaye, great song. and then carole and i will play "will you still love me tomorrow." we'll play "you've got a friend." we'll play "up on the roof." she'll do a couple songs of her own, "sweet seasons," and "so far away," and then we'll -- me last presence on stage is to sing "mexico," and since jimmy

buffett covers that song, we'll bring jimmy out to sing that song, then i'll hand it over to him. that's our plan. you know, got to stick with it. >> got to stick with the plan. james taylor, it's truly a pleasure. >> brooke, my pleasure. thank you. >> we'll see you tonight. thank you so much. boston strong. ♪ we're here at nashville's renowned jimmy kelly's steakhouse, where tonight we've switched their steaks with walmart's choice premium steak. it's a steakover. it's tender. good flavor. it just melts in your mouth. mine's perfect -- man! we're actually eating walmart steaks. are you serious? fantastic! that was a good cut of meat. [ earl ] these are perfectly aged for flavor and tenderness. i would definitely go to walmart to buy steaks. walmart choice premium steak in the black package.

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you're a nice lady. ...and we inspected his brakes for free. -free is good. -free is very good. [ male announcer ] now get 50% off brake pads and shoes at meineke. welcome back. i'm brooke baldwin live in boston for a special night here. standing in front of the td garden, which normally you see screaming basketball or hockey fans. tonight, though, it's a much different occasion. it will be full of 15,000 people here in the city of boston paying tribute to what happened here in the city six weeks ago and helping heal. we're going to get to that, more of that, here in just a moment. more special guests here live on the show. but i want to turn to this. now it turns out another letter

mailed to the president may have contained deadly poison. 90 minutes ago the secret service confirmed the letter was intercepted today. the secret service spokesman said it is similar to a suspicious letter, actually letters, mailed to new york mayor michael bloomberg, also to the head of bloomberg's gun control group. at this hour, we are getting new details about a threatening message contained in those possibly poisonous letters. for that, let's go to cnn's debra feyerick live in new york. debra, what are you learning today? >> brooke, the messages in the letters received by new york's mayor and gun control group, they are threatening and they are frightening. according to an individual who saw what was written, quote, you will have to kill me before you get my guns. anyone who wants to come to my house will get shot in the face, the right to bear arms is my god-given right and i'll exercise that right until the day i die, unquote. here's what mayor michael

bloomberg had to say. >> the letter was, obviously, referred to our anti-gun efforts, but there's 12,000 people that are going to get killed this year with guns and 19,000 that are going to commit suicide with guns and we're not going to walk away from those efforts. >> now, police say the two letters appear to be written by the same person and sent to shreveport, louisiana, the third letter sent to the president came from the same postmark. they were intercepted at off-site sorting facilities, but the head of the gun control group said he's fine but can't comment. the mayor's office says the envelope was, when discovered, put in a special containment box by the mail room staffer and was taken away by nypd and hazmat units for testing. we areold it did test positive for traces of ricin and the mail room now being cleaned by environmental protection.

brooke? >> deborah feyerick, thank you so much for that. coming up next here in boston, more about the american mom being held right now in a mexican prison. she now has opened up to cnn. >> i need to be back with my family. i need to be out of here. i need help. >> a judge is considering whether or not to let her free. let her come home. our conversation with this mother in 90 seconds. your heart, is that true? says here that cheerios has whole grain oats that can help remove some cholesterol, and that's heart healthy. ♪ [ dad ] jan? [ marcy ] it's like memory foam. [ female announcer ] the only pad made from a revolutionary material. [ erina ] it totally fits to your body. [ female announcer ] it's incredible protection, you'll barely feel it.

always infinity. tell us what you think. i'm brooke baldwin live in boston. back to our special coverage in just a moment.

here in the united states, yellow school buses, they are a common sight, but in some countries, the lack of transportation can make it pretty tough for kids to get to school. the cnn film "girl rising," airing june 16th, deals with the challenges a number of girls face with getting education. and today we want to introduce you to a young girl from a small mountain village in peru. >> translator: i have six brothers and sisters. where i live, there are no schools. every monday we ride a motorcycle to go to my school. when my dad is not home, i walk to school. it takes two hours. >> translator: i want to help her go to school, because i want her to have a better education than mine. >> translator: i like math, especially multiplying. during the week, i sleep in the school dorms. for me, it's difficult to be far

from my parents. when i'm with my classmates, they make me smile. on saturday and sunday when i'm at home, i do my homework with my mother. >> translator: she teaches me addition, subtraction, things like that. i can't read very well either, so she shows me how to read. >> translator: i want to be a teacher. >> if you'd like to learn more about the organization that helps this young girl attend school and the ten times ten fund for girls' education, this is what you need to do, go to cnn.com/girlrising. and our film, our cnn film, "girl rising" premiers on june 16th, 9:00 p.m. eastern here on cnn. we're back in 70 seconds live from boston.

still in prison, but hoping, desperately hoping, to get out. this arizona mother detained in mexico on drug trafficking charges tells cnn there is video proving she is innocent. she says that her lawyer will present it this afternoon to a judge and he will decide tomorrow if yanira maldonado should go free. it has now been one week since soldiers arrested her at a military checkpoint in mexico. they allegedly found 12 pounds of marijuana under her bus seat. but her attorney says surveillance video of maldonado and her husband boarding the bus

shows them carrying no packages, only maldonado holding a purse. what's more here, the soldiers were a no show for a court hearing yesterday. and as her case strengthens, so does maldonado's resolve to keep praying. inside the jail she sat down with our senior latin america affairs rafael romo and talked about the toll prison has taken on her. >> i'm not a killer, i'm not a criminal. i'm just here by mistake, because people aren't doing their work. this is not right. i need to be back with my family. i need to be out of here. i need help. >> how are you holding up? >> reading the scriptures. reading the book of mormon,

praying, fasting. i know the support i've been getting from my family, my husband, my children. at the checkpoint, they ask us to get off the bus and they were checking for drugs or i don't know what else, and they say they found something under my seat, but i never saw anything. >> what would you like to tell to people who may be thinking about coming to mexico? any advice? >> i don't want to give advice anymore, because i used to tell people, come to mexico, it's not true what they are saying. i come, i drive myself, nothing happens. it's good. people say, no, you're crazy, you're this, you're that, and look what's happening to me now. >> look what's happening to this mother of seven, grandmother of

two. cnn legal analyst sunny hostin is on the case with me in new york. sunny, we mentioned earlier this surveillance video, right, that shows this couple boarding this bus with yanira merely carrying her purse. her lawyer says he has documents he's going to show this judge showing how the maldonados have a clean record, they hold jobs, they are clean people. is that enough? >> i think it's significant, no question about it. that's the question i've had in my mind from the very beginning, how do you bring in 12 pounds of marijuana, that's the equivalent to -- >> that's a lot of marijuana. >> -- a thousand joints to one point, talking about 12,000 joints. how do you bring that much in without anyone seeing it? that has bothered me. now there's evidence of surveillance video she's carrying a purse. there's not enough room in a purse for that amount of marijuana, and i think she doesn't really fit the traditional profile of a mule, of a drug mule. she's married, a mother, she

just doesn't fit that profile. and so i think in combination, the fact that these officers never showed up for the hearing and you combine that, brooke, with the fact that this surveillance video, i think she has a pretty good chance of being released. >> so, hopefully, you know, they can prove all of that and she can, you know, go home to her family, if that's the case, the husband, you know, he says he was told it will cost $5,000 even to free his wife if the case is dropped. i mean, i know this is mexico, but is that a normal thing overseas? >> you know, unfortunately, we do have something called a foreign corrupt practices act in large part because there is corruption overseas, and these bribes, unfortunately, are a part of doing business in parts of the world, and so is it unusual, is it rare, no. not at all. >> okay. sunny hostin, we'll follow it

and see if she does get to return to her family once they can prove she is, in fact, innocent. appreciate it so much. coming up here live from boston, again, we're standing in front of the td garden, normally home to the celtics, the bruins, but it's a special show tonight. 15,000 people, musical and comedian ambassadors here to massachusetts as boston strong taking place. this is our look on the stage, we were able to get in earlier. on the stage tonight, jimmy buffett, aerosmith, james taylor, new kids on the block, so many more performing on the stage. we're going to take you inside the td garden coming up next. plus, i've just got word severe weather is heading into the oklahoma city area. chad myers is checking on the storms. we'll check in with chad next.

hi, there, and welcome back to our special cnn coverage live in boston. i'm brooke baldwin.

huge tribute concert in the building behind me, this is the td garden. in terms of the timeline, it has been just about six weeks since those two bombs detonated at the finish line on boylston street of the boston marathon, and the city, i mean, i was here for three weeks. pretty quickly you could tell these folks here were beginning to heal. it's a tough, tough city. and tonight, a star-studded affair to help in that healing and in that recovery process here at the td garden in town. if you have seen the lineup, if you have not seen the lineup, these are huge names hitting the stage for this benefit concert benefitting the one fund, which is set up by mayor menino. i am talking aerosmith, new kids on the block, carole king, boston, james taylor, just to name a few. we're also told there may be some special guests and a couple of comedians, as well, rocking out to the one fund this evening. now, i want to take you inside the arena where the countdown is on to this fundraising concert.

moments ago, i was lucky enough to get an inside peek with a look ahead of what the venue looks like. take a look. normally, this place sees lots of screaming hockey and basketball fans, but tonight is different. this is so special and exciting, because this is the first time we've really gotten this inside look inside the td garden. we're walking here on the floor where tonight for the boston strong benefit show, this floor will be full of seats. and on that stage, you will see regional favorites, ambassadors of massachusetts, if you will, musical ambassadors, the likes of james taylor and aerosmith, comedians like dane cook, the drop kick murphys, for example, and looking over here since this is special in seeing this ahead of the show look, people are beginning with the sound checks. these are, obviously, the crews making sure the sound is okay. oh, they just rolled it away, but i could tell one other band, this is part of the show why this show kicked off, nkotb,

anyone? new kids on the block, all happening tonight. 15,000 people. it sold out in five minutes. and here we are, inside the td garden. >> let me just give you a little bit of color if you saw my james taylor interview at the top of the show, before we talked to james we were told before he was walking down the hallway, imagine these bands getting cozy behind the scenes here, somebody from the new kids on the block was reaching out to james taylor because they were big fans and wanted to meet them and we were talking to the td garden people, think about it, bruins and celtics and visiting teams, that's basically a couple of locker rooms. picture these locker rooms separated by curtains. that's the situation back stage. no one's getting paid for this. this is absolutely free and voluntary for the city of boston, so super special. the concert kicks off at 7:00 p.m. tonight and we'll be live streaming it on cnn.com if you'd like to watch.

talking weather now, we have severe weather breaking out across parts of the southern plains. let's go straight to our meteorologist, chad myers, who is out there for us. chad, tell me exactly where you are and what you see. >> i'm in norman, oklahoma, which is just south of moore, which, obviously, was the town that was hit so hard a couple of weeks ago. and we have developing thunderstorms to our southwest. also another one to my northwest up near piedmont, oklahoma. brooke, i'm very concerned about today. we have storms already rotating. it's a little past 1:30 in the afternoon here. it's very hot today, much warmer than it was yesterday. we have single-cell thunderstorms, super cell all by themselves, not in a line, thunderstorms developing along the line to the west heading into oklahoma city metro area. if you are in the oklahoma city metro area, anywhere guthrie, piedmont, oklahoma city, moore, and even down to norman, you are in the way of storms that are

developing and now beginning to rotate. i have no confirmation anything's on the ground yet, but trust me, brooke, tornados will touch down today. tornados will make damage today, and people are in the way. i will keep you advised as much as we can. we're going to be out with professional storm chasers actually bringing a doppler radar with us to look at these storms on the inside-out, as well. we'll keep you advised. >> i was just, chad, as you know, in norman last week. norman's not too far from moore, which was hit by the ef-5 tornado in oklahoma. ou is where a place where the president offered up a lot of the dorms for many of the home owners displaced because their homes were leveled. i'm curious if you've had a chance being out there, these are people who have lost their homes, many of whom don't have storm shelters. i know the sirens went off, gave them about 16 minutes heads up,

that will presumably happen again, correct? >> i believe it will. i believe we'll hear sirens, there will be tornado warnings. we spent the night just west of oklahoma city in the western part of the town. the entire town was sold out. the hotel rooms, nothing in oklahoma city at all simply because of the concert and because the people still don't have places to live where their houses were knocked down in moore and they are still not structurally sound. we talked to these people yesterday and they said we're shell shocked, we don't need more storms, how can there be three more days of this coming? and that's what we have, today, tomorrow, and likely even the end of the weekend. once this system sets up where there's a big low pressure in the west, a trough of the jet stream dipping down over the rocky mountains and east, the rocky mountains go up and so does the jet stream, up and over into the great lakes. this is a setup and it takes days for the setup to go away, takes days to happen, but once

it's there, day after day after day of severe weather and today, brooke, is going to be a bad one. you need to have your weather radio on and take every precaution that you can. this is a serious day in oklahoma city and all of the surrounding counties. >> chad myers, you know the area very well, you were a meteorologist in oklahoma city for a couple of years. we will check back in with you momentarily. let's hope nothing hit s oklahoma. chad myers, we'll be in touch, thank you. >> brooke? >> in other news -- go ahead, chad, quickly, yeah. >> we just have a brand new tornado warning for a tornado northwest of oklahoma city, northwest of piedmont heading towards the guthrie area, and i'm sure the sirens are already going out. our meteorologists back at the station, at cnn, will keep you advised on that one, as well, as they can see the radar better than i can on the laptop i have in my car. >> chad, let me keep you now. if you're saying tornado

warning, how much time do people have, what should people in this area of the country be doing right now? >> well, we listened to the national weather service yesterday say that they were going to be very discreet putting out tornado warnings. they were going to make sure it was a valid storm for a tornado warning and not try to really freak people out, you know, they don't want to overwarn at this point in time. people are already shocked and you don't want to be crying wolf with this. they are going to be very judicious, and i'm telling you, if they put the warning out, they mean it. you're going to get ten to 15 minutes' notice of the tornado being on the ground if you are in the beginning of the storm. if you're to the east of the polygon or square, you could be talking about 30 minutes' notice, that's about what they had in moore, but it's going to be one of those days a tornado could come down and you could get ten minutes' notice and these could be very large tornados today. >> and i know with the tornado

in moore, it was absolutely huge and in parts was incredibly wide, was on the ground for quite a bit of time. as you know, these tornados, they hit, they move, they hit again, they move. it's absolutely difficult to predict the trajectory of any of these, correct? >> a little bit, although we do know these are going to be coming in just to the north of due east today, and if you look off to your west and you see a storm coming, if you see gray clouds today, even if you don't get a warning and a storm is coming to you, know that the potential is there. the potential is there enough that you need to be taking cover with any approaching storm. only right now because, brooke, they are not lined up. they are not in a line and in fighting each other. they are all by themselves and those storms that are all by themselves, those are the ones that are the most dangerous. and i'm reading the warning now out of norman. i do want you to be taking coverage for guthrie, crescent,

cedar valley, to the northeast of piedmont, that's the direction of movement. these storms are moving to the northeast at 30 miles per hour. don't try to outrun this storm. it's taking across these roads. you can go o 40 miles or 50 miles to the north or to the east, roads in oklahoma don't go diagonal, they go north, south, east, west. you need to take cover right now if you hear the sirens or if your noaa weather radio is going off. >> chad myers, we're going to check back in with you, do me a favor and stay on the phone with me as you're pointing out tornado warnings in and around the oklahoma city area. we are getting new pictures. this is tornado chaser pictures and video. we're going to share more of this and talk more with chad here right after this quick break. breaking news on cnn. [ male announcer ] this is george. the day building a play set begins with a surprise twinge of back pain... and a choice. take up to 4 advil in a day or 2 aleve for all day relief.

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welcome back. i' brooke baldwin live in boston in front of the td garden. huge night tonight. a nuj night of healing for a city hit hard by terrorists about six weeks ago. we'll get back to that special coverage in a moment and some of the special artists here to help. but first, breaking news here as there are now tornado warnings in and around the oklahoma city area, to be exact, northwest of oklahoma city. our meteorologist chad myers is in norman, oklahoma, chasing

some of these storms with some storm chaser teams. chad, tell me, are you leaving norman, where are you headed, what more do you know? >> we are with the chase team out of the university of oklahoma. we actually are bringing with us, they are, a doppler radar to look inside the storm to be able to identify where the tornado might be, what storm might be the strongest coming. so which one that we want to chase. the problem is, this is not even so much a chase day. this is a day that i need you to be on your guard in oklahoma county, canadian county, anardarko, across the i-35. brooke, where you spent so much time, there are storms headed right for the same areas that have been hit so very hard. now, the only tornado warning that we have now has moved away from piedmont up towards guthrie. guthrie, oklahoma, you can see the storm to your west, have a few minutes' notice, but you need to take cover.

this is a serious rotating storm. brooke, the tops of the storms are up to about 50,000 feet tall. that's ten miles high. so, the severe hail that can come out, the wind that can come out, and, of course, the tornado damage, as well. sometimes hail and wind can do as much damage to a house, not ef-5 damage, but certainly significant damage to a home and, obviously, to your health, as well. you need to take cover. these storms mean business today. wouldn't be here if i didn't think that this could be a significant day here. this could be a day where we have big tornados again on the ground. talking ef-3s or greater tornados on the ground possibly running into populated places, so pay attention today. >> so, just so i'm hearing you correctly, chad, you are saying a possibility of multiple, multiple tornados. >> i think without a doubt there will be more than one tornado on the ground at the same time in different locations, but that's because the storms have not made

a line yet. we call that a squall line. when a squall line of storms, all the little storms all line up in a row, you'll get some wind damage, but when the storms are out by themselves, when they are called super cells, that's when they rotate and that's when they make that ef-3, 4, and 5 possible damage. and we have that much humidity, moisture, buoyancy, sheer, everything is coming together, all the ingredients are here today, and right now because we have a couple of those storms that are all by themselves, completely by themselves, they are rotating now and they will put down tornados today. >> chad myers, don't go too far from that phone. we have to sneak a quick break in. but before we do, are these pictures on the right-hand side of the screen, the kfor picks, are those live pictures of those clouds? yes, those are live pictures here, once again, chad myers saying there could be at least more than one tornado forming

very, very ominous looking here. got to get a break in. breaking news here as we're watching severe storms and the possibility of tornados in oklahoma. we went out and asked people a simple question: how old is the oldest person you've known? we gave people a sticker and had them show us. we learned a lot of us have known someone who's lived well into their 90s. and that's a great thing. but even though we're living longer, one thing that hasn't changed much is the official retirement age. ♪ the question is how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years. ♪

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and welcome back. i'm brooke baldwin live here in boston for the boston strong relief concert tonight at the td garden. we have much more coverage, little more from my interview with james taylor and other artists who will be performing

tonight. packed crowd, 15,000 or so people honoring those in this city, who have survived what happened here six weeks ago. we're going to talk about that in just a moment. but i want to get back to our breaking news here, severe weather in the plains, specifically oklahoma. we, of course, remember what happened in moore, oklahoma, and several communities around oklahoma city last week. ef-4, ef-5 tornado, neighborhood after neighborhood absolutely leveled. and you're looking at live pictures. left-hand side of the screen, both are live, these are storm chaser pictures coming, obviously, from inside of a car as they are chasing this thing. on the right-hand side, aerial pictures. very, very dark clouds in and around the oklahoma city area thanks to our affiliate koco. chad myers, meteorologist chad myers, is with the chase team out of o.u., university of oklahoma out of norman. he is on the phone with me right now. chad, i think as we talk about

this tornado warning for this part of oklahoma, part outside of oklahoma city, remind people, if you live in this area, and i know you're telling people to take cover, where do they take cover, and when do they get the heads up? when do the sirens scream? >> you know what, everybody should already have a plan in place. the day the storm hits is a little bit too late, but let's say you don't, you just moved here or you're at a conference, whatever it is, you do need to listen to the authorities that you're with. the conference centers, the hotels, all know where the strongest part of their buildings are. if you're in your own home, you want to be inside the home as close to the middle of the home as possible, getting as many walls between you and the outside as possible. of course, the outside wall, there's glass there, windows, stay away from that wall, into a bedroom, maybe into that bedroom's closet. you also want to make sure there's nothing heavy above your

head. you don't want to be putting bowling balls above you as the home possibly starts to get compromised by the tornado. we do know that right now the sirens are going off, there's a large hook echo, which means it looks just like the storm that moved through moore. i do not believe we have a big tornado on the ground yet. i'm watching some of the pictures streaming from our affiliates, and so far all i'm seeing is rain. the storms will be visible for awhile. there's a lot of humidity in the air. we will see the tornados on the ground. later today, later tonight, the tornados will be wrapped in so much rain that will be falling. if it's coming your way, you hear your siren, if you know your neighbor has a strong place, if they use, you know, $5,000, whatever it might cost, to build that safe house inside, knock on the door if you know it's coming to your house and say can we come in for 30 minutes just to be safe? now i think you could see from the damage in moore, what the

potential is in a city. for so many years it was said there's a bubble, there's a bubble over the city. it will never get hit. that, certainly, isn't true. >> we know it isn't true. you know that, as well. you're a meteorologist in oklahoma city, i know, for a number of years. chad myers, stay with me. i want to stay on these live pictures, as well, guys, as i bring in samantha moore, our cnn meteorologist in the weather center. samantha, give us the bigger picture. we're looking at these pictures and i don't specifically know where these clouds are that we're looking at, but as we talk about tornado warnings, how huge of an area in oklahoma are we talking? >> well, the watch area right now really encompasses about half of the state here, so we're talking about northeastern oklahoma, down towards interstate 44 here, so this whole stretch. and you can see these watches extend all the way across parts of missouri, in through illinois, and even parts of

arkansas here. so this is the broad area with these watches now extending, as well, up to wisconsin. it is a huge area for -- which will affect millions of people. let's go ahead here, go in closer and take a look at some of these warnings that chad was talking about, as well. of course, this is the radar out of oklahoma city. and you can see we do have this cell that shows an incredible amount of rotation moving towards guthrie, to the northeast at around 25 miles per hour. so you do need to take cover in this area, as chad was talking about, get those helmets out and shoes on the kids. also, this cell, as well, you can see that hook echo here. this is also moving to the northeast around 25 miles per hour. this is the one that's expected to move into the moore area by about 3:15. so very -- we're going to keep our eye on this one intently as we head towards 3:00 as it will be approaching moore. you do need to take cover in this area, as well. at least have your plan ready to

go, where you will go to stay safe, you and the kids and everyone you know. chad was right, knock on the neighbor's door if that's what you need to do if they have a shelter. >> yep. chilling, sam, to hear you say it's heading towards moore, as we know, moore smacked last week, leveled. many of the neighborhoods by that ef-5. samantha mohr, thank you so much. we're going to pull away. we have to sneak a quick break in. we have chad myers in oklahoma watching these storms. tornado warnings in oklahoma. again, we'll be right back.

-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com welcome back to a very windy boston, massachusetts, on this thursday afternoon here. we're here because it's a very special night for the city of boston, because in the building behind me, the td garden, home to the celtics and the bruins. normally you have hockey and basketball fans inside. tonight on the stage, aerosmith, jimmy buffett, james taylor, new kids on the block, boston, drop kick murphys, just to name a few. i know you're seeing the wind here. let's talk real wind. let's talk oklahoma, specifically, because that is our breaking news story at the moment. that is the breaking news story at the moment. take a look here at two live pictures. the left-hand side of your screen, this is from a storm chaser there on the road in oklahoma. on the right side, very, very dark, ominous clouds in oklahoma, as well. that's a picture from one of our affiliates out of oklahoma city, koco. tornado warnings in oklahoma.

so far, no tornado has been spotted, but i can tell you as we've been talking to our own meteorologists that this tornado warning, this could be encroa encroaching upon moore, oklahoma. you know the story in moore, the ef-5 tornado that leveled much of moore just last week. and also heading toward oklahoma city. we have samantha mohr in the cnn severe weather center and chad myers on the phone watching all of this from oklahoma. chad, let me begin with you. tell me exactly what you know. >> we are now traveling on i-35 south. now we're on highway 9 moving to the west towards chickashae, oklahoma. as the storm moves off towards the north and northeast, that is right in line, at least at this point, it is right in line with an impact of the oklahoma city metro area. now we can't tell you whether

it's going to be mustang or el reno, moore, or norman, we can't tell you that just yet because the storm can turn left and turn right. they do turn left and right, depending on their circulation and rotation and how they get pushed by the wind, but very, very dark clouds all the way down to the horizon with a large blow-off, almost like cotton candy in the middle and blowing off to wispy, the hair tail, horse hair feather tails that sometimes we see. we call them cirrus clouds and that's a perfectly formed storm. i need everyone in central oklahoma and northeastern oklahoma up towards osage county with a tornado warning that this is a severe weather day that we will look back on and say, wow, i can't believe we had four or five, whatever, tornados on the ground at the same time. i do believe and so does the weather service that this will be possibly the worst day of the

year so far. that doesn't mean the worst day for damage, because there's a lot of there in oklahoma with no people, and that's how we hope this plays out. but with the cells to the southwest of the city, moving to the northeast, if it continues to be by itself, we have a lot of potential damage there. >> so, what should people right now, chad myers, be doing? >> well, it's too early to consider this a tornado emergency, because there is such a term, there are tornado emergencies, which means a large and dangerous tornado is on the ground heading to such and such city. it's not to that point yet, but you'd absolutely -- you cannot turn away from this storm. you can't just go get in the car and say i'm going to go get bread and milk. that is not important at this point. gather your children, get them in one place and get them with you, get your furniture from the outside, inside. one of those precaution days we know a lot of weather is heading to the major cities. if you can alleviate some of the damage caused to your house by

things you can do around your home, that can help out, too. that can help you out in your cleanup efforts, but right now we're heading into what looks to be a very dangerous storm that could be moving into oklahoma metro area. that's oklahoma county, cleveland county, and all the way points southward towards moore and norman, but we'll keep you advised as it gets closer. >> and again, we're keeping in mind, mindful of this because i'm here in boston for the benefit concert tonight and there was the benefit concert last night in oklahoma city for the folks in the surrounding communities who lost their homes and several deaths, we know, from what happened in moore last week with that ef-5 tornado. you, chad myers, worked in oklahoma city. you know this area of the country better than most we have at cnn, and for the people who live there, and i was really struck by this being there last week, a lot of them are native oklahomaens and they are used to

the warnings and many of them, they do know what to do. >> yesterday, brooke, i was out almost to the panhandle of oklahoma, almost touching the texas panhandle, and we were up there in an eyeglass supply company using their wifi, and the ladies behind the counter looked at me and said, make it stop. there's just too many days of this in a row. make it go away. and we had this tornado drought for the last four months, basically until the moore day. 250 tornados on the ground and there should have been 500. now we are making up for just day after day after day and they are weary. they are storm weary, and i just don't want people to let their guard down because we've had so many days i didn't get hit, i didn't get hit. this could be a big day for people in central oklahoma. >> chad, standby for me. guys, do we still have samantha

who can talk us through a little bit of the radar? let's take a look at that. samantha, go ahead. >> hi, brooke. yeah, absolutely, we're talking about these two warned areas that we're really concerned about. we have that tornado warning on this cell that is moving into guthrie right now as we speak. it's moving to the east around 25 miles per hour. a lot of rotation showing up on this cell, and it's currently being warned on, so you need to take cover in this area. and also we have a severe thunderstorm warning on the cell that's approaching chickashae, so that indicates we have some rotation in this one, as well. now, this is the cell we're watching as it moves towards moore, oklahoma, and you were talking about, yes, this is the same area that saw the devastation last week and moore has now seen two of the costliest tornados ever in u.s. history, two of the top five most costly tornados have happened in moore, oklahoma. so they appear, once again, of

course, to be in the hot bed of activity, as we well know. but watching this particular cell working its way, and you can see a new warning just popped here on the screen, new severe thunderstorm warning, and you can clearly see the rotation here in this echo. this one to the north we can show you, we do have a chaser out there. we can show you the picture here of this particular cell to the north of moore and here's oklahoma city, so it is due north here right now. and this is what they are seeing as they make their way -- i'm not sure exactly which interstate they are on here, or which highway they are on, but they are definitely moving towards that cell that is warned on. you can see it is a tornado warning. this is the one we've seen a lot of rotation on, as well, this is the one near guthrie at this hour. folks here in guthrie, folks in moore, that definitely need to get ready to take cover at any moment. when you look at the big picture here, it is really, literally, millions of people stretching from oklahoma, into arkansas, missouri, on up through

illinois, eastern iowa, and on up into wisconsin. so a huge number of people and a huge area of square miles could potentially be affected by severe weather yet this afternoon and evening, brooke. >> samantha, thank you. just keep in mind, much of moore was leveled last week by that ef-5, but it was absolutely destroyed in 1999 and so much of the town rebuilt and many people, you know, that is their home. i'm getting e-mails, including one from cnn employee marcie hines. i'm reading this, she said she's from moore, oklahoma, she's been talking to her friends on the phone who are understandably worried by this round of storms. we've kevin ross now on the phone. he's a storm chaser. kevin, if you can hear me, i understand you are southwest of oklahoma city. tell me what you're seeing. >> yes, that's correct. we're in chickasha, oklahoma,

right now. the storm itself is probably about five miles to our west, five to ten, and the wall cloud in the last probably five to ten minutes have really lowered. we're kind of in and out getting a good visual of it here as we make our way through the city of chickasha, but the storm itself is healthy, especially on radar, looks like it's not going anywhere any time soon. it's not tornado warned at the moment, i guess it's low-level rotation, still isn't very strong. but as it continues eastward, it has the potential to become tornado warned and to put down a tornado. >> okay. two questions i have as you rattled off a couple of terms. when you say wall cloud, i want you to explain to people who do not follow tornados as intima intimately as you do, what is a wall cloud? begin with that. >> well, the wall cloud is, essentially, the structure from

which the tornado usually forms. it's just a lowered area of cloud base underneath the storm itself. and when you see the wall cloud, that's generally -- not necessarily a precursor to tornado development, but it's just one of those signs that let's us chasers and anyone else watching know that the storm itself is strong and attempting to acquire better low-level rotation and could put down a tornado. >> okay, could. and the other word you used, healthy. you said it's still sitting there, it's not moved, not formed into a tornado. when i hear the word "healthy," that has a positive connotation, but not necessarily a positive for the people there. >> absolutely not. healthy in terms of the storm, but, yes, the storm is moving into more populated areas of central oklahoma. it is not a good thing.

we definitely don't want to see a repeat of what happened last week at all. but as we're watching it here, like i said, it's not -- it's not really ramping up yet in terms of strength, but it definitely could at any time. >> kevin rolfs, we know you're watching, we are, as well. thank you so much for calling in as we're looking at multiple now, multiple live pictures. he describes the wall cloud forming under the clouds and that is from which a tornado can spawn. again, tornado warnings as this system is moving, dare i say, towards moore, that was hit so terribly last week and also the metropolitan area of oklahoma city. chad myers is on the ground for us in oklahoma. we're going to check in with chad after this quick break. stay with me, chad myers has new information. you're watching cnn breaking news. ♪

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that your mouth is under attack, from food particles and bacteria. try fixodent. it helps create a food seal defense for a clean mouth and kills bacteria for fresh breath. ♪ fixodent, and forget it. this is cnn breaking news. welcome back to cnn. you are watching breaking news coverage here of severe storms in oklahoma, specifically, i'm here in boston. we're here covering this huge benefit concert at the td garden tonight. let me tell you, there was a benefit concert just last night in oklahoma city, because you know what happened last week in moore, oklahoma, and several of the communities in and around the oklahoma city area, who were

hit by multiple tornados that leveled so many homes in those communities. and here we are. i don't want to say again, because no one has seen the tornados so far, but i know a lot of people in moore, specifically, are worried and are hunkering down. we have a number of people we're talking to. first of all, chad myers, our meteorologist, is in oklahoma watching these storms. samantha mohr is in the severe weather center watching the radar for us and looking at the bigger picture and we're looking at talking to some people who have clearly been through this before in oklahoma and are worried, yet again, of what could happen. first to chad myers in oklahoma. chad, i understand you have some new information. go ahead. >> we are following the cell that you talked about with the storm chaser with that lowering, with the wall cloud. and it's kind of a misnomer. it's really a part of the storm that drops from the main base of the storm, and it just looks like something hanging down,

almost a square box hanging down. it's round, but you get it from afar, it just looks like a part that lowers to the ground. somewhere out of that is where the tornado would form. right now, the weather service still does not have a tornado warning on that chickasha storm. 10,000, 15,000 feet high, but because no one lives up there, they are not warning people because of that. they do not believe the tornado is touching or reaching for the ground just yet. that's what's called the low-level circulation. when that low-level circulation tightens up or becomes a spin, that's when the warning will go out. we're going to watch it all by itself, there's nothing to fight it. i still do believe it's going to get stronger before it gets weaker. also watching the storm up near guthrie, the hook echo, the couplet, did miss guthrie and is moving across i-35. so far, so good on both of these storms. tornado warning on the guthrie storm, severe warning on the

chickasha storm. this is going to be a big deal for people in oklahoma and oklahoma city and moore and possibly even norman if this travels just off to the east rather than to the northeast. that would take it towards the norman area, more than the moore area. we'll keep watching the direction because it's still developing right now, brooke. >> norman, not too far from moore, not at all, just mere minutes away. that is where so many of those folks who lost their homes have been living in the dorms, because that's the home of the university of oklahoma and o.u. has been generous enough to put roofs over these peoples heads. chad, again, as we've been looking at these live pictures, we have seen helicopters flying for now near oklahoma city. let me take it back, super simple question as we're looking at these ominous clouds, how do tornados form? >> wow.

how many hours do you have, brooke? you know, i got six years of college at nebraska that taught me all this. there are so many ingredients to making a great soup, and the number of ingredients to make a tornado. just because you might, you know, say you're trying to make a cake, if you add twice as much sugar, doesn't mean you make twice as good of a cake, just means you have a mess. sometimes these things coming in, the jet stream aloft to turn the storm, winds at the lower level at a different direction to help twist the winds as the air goes up. as the air goes up, they believe, and that's why we're following the doppler right now, we're going to park this doppler on wheels and shoot right through this storm to see where the tornado is and see if it's coming down. that's probably 15 minutes before we park. we just wept through blanchard on the way right now to chickasha. as the rotation continues to go up, it's in there, obviously,

but as the rotation starts in the midlevels of the storm, eventually like an ice skater bringing her arms in when she's standing on one skate, if her arms are out, she's spinning slowly. when they are bringing her arms in, she starts to escape very quickly and spin quickly, conservation of angular momentum, that will take me another two hours, but that's all part of how a regular thunderstorm has to be by itself really not bound -- bounced off by any other storm to create the perfect scenario to create the tornado and america is the place where there are more tornados than any place else. we have the jet stream, we have the mountains with dry air to our west, the gulf of mexico is the juice, the supply, for all of the moisture to make this tornado work, to make the thunderstorms get big, and the cold air can come out of canada, as well. i believe we're starting to see a little bit more rotation on these storms where if not, you have to get back to samantha,

because my internet service is getting a little bit sketchy, but we could be getting a tornado warning at any time. >> let me do that. let me do that right now, chad. stay on the phone with me. samantha mohr at cnn, samantha, what are you seeing, how many active warnings out there right now? >> we have two active warnings right now in the state of oklahoma, brooke. you can see the one that chad's making his way towards. that is still at this point a severe thunderstorm warning, but you can clearly see that there's a bit of a hook here, which means there's some rotation possibly in the middle levels of the storm, not at the surface as of yet. this tornado warning further to the north of moore and north of oklahoma city, the one that has been moving across i-35 in guthrie, that still does have a current tornado warning on it, as well. that one is moving to the east at around 25 miles per hour. i think we have some video coming out of that particular cell. yes, here's a location one of

the chasers north of oklahoma city on i-35. this is the view he has, obviously, he's more in a treed area right now. you can't exactly see the clouds, so we'll leave that picture. as we go to the big picture, you can see just how many people can be affected here, some 323,000 square miles, 43 million people from wisconsin, down in through eastern iowa, illinois, including peoria, minnesota, st. louis could be affected here, into springfield, missouri, stretching down into arkansas and then, of course, over into oklahoma city we have that watch, that tornado watch. all of these marked in red are tornado watches, of course, they'll be in effect until the late evening hours and the one in oklahoma city and central oklahoma will be in effect until 10:00 p.m., so as chad said, things are just really getting going now and it is going to be a long and very active evening here regarding severe weather and regarding possible tornados. so we're talking some 2.2 million people in the probable

zone for severe weather yet this evening, brooke. >> 2.2 million people, samantha mohr, don't go too far. chad myers, stay on the phone with me. we're going to get a break in as we're following this breaking news, samantha mentioned, two active tornado warnings in oklahoma, and it's heading towards moore. many of those neighborhoods in moore, as you know, hit and leveled. people lost their homes, some lost lives in that tornado last week. we have someone on the phone from moore as they are hunkering down and incredibly fearful again. that conversation is coming up. stay with me.

welcome back, i'm brooke baldwin live here in boston, but we want to continue our breaking news coverage here of two tornado warnings, two active tornado warnings, in the state of oklahoma. got a couple of guests as we continue to look at these live pictures, these dark, ominous clouds over the city, areas outside of oklahoma city.

two people want to talk to. first, i want to bring in bob frichie, he is a storm chaser talking to me southwest of moore, oklahoma. bob, if you can hear me, i'm told as we're looking at these clouds, tell me what do the clouds look like to you in person? >> yeah. i'm just sitting actually just to the west of chickasha looking north at a pretty organized wall cloud, basically, just a decent super cell thunderstorm with sustained rotation after a little bit and a pretty nicely organized wall cloud. >> so -- i don't know if you're cutting out, but again, if you're saying a nicely organized wall cloud, that basically -- the wall cloud is what you watch and that is where a tornado can spawn. so if you're telling me it's nice, that means -- what does

that mean exactly? >> yeah, it basically just means that the storm has kind of established itself. it's organized its low-level features, and it's continuing to rotate. there's no tornado on the ground at this moment, but if it continues to organize and continues to persist as it moves into a little bit better of an air mass for storms off to the east, it could pose some problems for the chickasha over to the i-35 corridor. >> and when you talk about a tornado forming, bob, how quickly does that happen? is it seconds, is it minutes? >> well, when you talk about going from an established mesocyclone to a tornado, it's on the order of minutes. and there's different signatures

that actually are easier seen in re dar data than visually descend from the cloud, but looking at it from the ground from this stage to a tornado, it could be on the order of ten minutes, it could not happen, it could be 30 minutes. but it appears at this point there's nothing imminent in the next five minutes. >> okay, nothing imminent in the next five minutes. bob fritchie, thank you, as you're chasing this storm in oklahoma. i want to bring in jim wroten, he's on the phone with me. he lives in moore, oklahoma. jim, you survived that ef-5 tornado last week. thank goodness, your home is still standing. i understand you were just helping friends with cleanup today. where are you right now? >> right now i'm located just east of broward elementary on

19th street and sante fe. and we're just down here, had several people that friends of mine that have lost their homes and we're down there kind of helping with the clean-up process and cooking some food for the clean-up workers and the utility linesmen and stuff like that. >> so you're helping out. are you in your car right now? >> yes. i'm currently in my car. i -- currently in my car with, actually, have one of the -- a girl with me who lost her home, and she's in the car with me. i'm taking her and my daughter, jacy, and my two nieces, jacy and lexi, over to the church, central church of christ, to volunteer to help pass out supplies and medical supplies and food and stuff like that.

>> so it sounds to me, jim, that you have a full car and you are going on as business as usual, despite what we are reporting with these active tornado warnings and the storm heading towards moore. i know -- i was there all last week, i know people in your neck of the woods, this is something you deal with each and every year. are you nervous at all? >> no. i am concerned. we do keep an eye on the tornado situation. we were -- i mean it came within a block and a half. the one on may 20th came within -- it destroyed homes a block and a half north of my home. so it's a few miles away for now, so i think we're -- i'm not concerned yet, but if it continues to build and get closer, we will definitely be on more of an alert status and try

and probably get closer to a shelter. >> so let me just ask you at what point do you make that call, jim, what time do you head to the shelter, and do you have a shelter at your house? >> no, we don't. we're on a list to get an underground shelter put in our home. it's quite a long process around four to five months backlog on getting those shelters, underground shelters, installed. but i do have a neighbor that lives about six doors down, five doors down, that's whose shelter we were in on may 20th. and we emerged and found our neighborhood partially destroyed. and we will definitely -- like i said, we will get one. we'll probably get in his shelter if there appears to be

an imminent danger of a tornado. >> okay, jim routon, it appears, though, you are continuing on and heading to the church and helping your neighbors clean up. and until you perhaps hear the warnings and sirens and head into the shelter, you are just continuing on. jim routon, thank you so much. we are thinking about you, we are thinking about everyone in moore and outside oklahoma city. chad myers, i don't know if you heard that conversation, but i suppose certain people need to take cover. talk about the voice of calm from someone living smack dab in an area that was hit so hard last week by that ef-5 tornado, and he is just continuing on with his day. >> you know, brooke, i talked to photographers and producers who don't live in oklahoma, they are here because they've been sent here, and their question to me so many times is, how could you put up with that, how could you live with this? and i ask them, where do you live? i live in l.a.

how can you live with earthquakes, how can you live with the san andreas fault, good point. i guess you have to have something. the fact is, these tornados are so well forecast now, the warnings are so good, and sometimes tornados are not survivab survivable, i understand that, that does happen where an ef-5 simply -- you cannot live through it, you do the best you can, but so many tornados are not ef-5s. of that 1,000 only one or two would be as strong as moore was and probably many years less than one or two, could be none. it's a matter of we have these tornados, we know they are here. as long as you're warned and do the right things. i'm watching this rotation, it's still not organized. it's -- i wouldn't even use the word healthy like the other storm spotter did, but we know that on the north side of this that hail today could be as big as tennis balls. so let's take the potential out

of a tornado, because it's only two or three or four blocks wide, but then you get a hail core that's three or four miles wide, what tennis size hail would do to the roof or car. what you can do right now is get vehicles inside your home, get your pets inside the home. make sure all farm animals, sometimes they get a mile away. try to get them back into the barn, get them into places where they are safe from the hail and not only the tornado, but in case there's hail or for that matter, wind damage. >> right. right. chad, stay on the phone with me. folks, as we're covering these tornado warnings in oklahoma, two active warnings. you heard the voice of someone who lives in moore continuing on with his day. i was in moore last week, you know what they told me time and time again, they cannot live in fear. our correspondent, george howell, is in oklahoma city. he was there covering the tornados that hit many of those towns last week. there was a big benefit concert

in town last night raising money for the survivors and for those families that have lost lives. we're going to check in with george after this. breaking news here on cnn. i do a lot of research on angie's list before i do any projects on my own. at angie's list, you'll find reviews written by people just like you. i love my contractor, and i am so thankful to angie's list for bringing us together. angie's list -- reviews you can trust. but once a week i let her play sheriff so i can wash it. i use tide to get out those week old stains and downy to get it fresh and soft. you are free to go. [ dad ] tide and downy together.

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all right. welcome back to cnn live coverage here of these severe storms that are forming in oklahoma, specifically we know of two active tornado warnings. got a couple of people we're talking to, including chad myers, our meteorologist who is on the ground chasing some of these storms. samantha mohr is in our severe weather center as we continue to watch these live pictures of these big, dark clouds in the oklahoma city area. i want to go first to kevin rolfs, who is a storm chaser just east of chickasha. kevin, what is the visual you have? i understand you're looking at this and it looks unorganized. is that a good thing or a bad thing? >> i'm sorry, could you repeat that? >> tell me what you see. kevin, can you hear me, it's brooke on cnn.

we're live, can you hear me, sir? >> i can hear you now. >> all right. let's try it again. just tell me, i'm going to start simply with what you see right now. >> what do i see right now, well, the storm as a whole from the last time we talked hasn't really organized anymore from where it was. it's just a broad circulation in the midlevels, and it hasn't really picked up in strength. >> okay. so if the storm is unorganized and this is your area of expertise, not mine, but when i hear unorganized, would that lessen the possibility of tornadic activity? >> at the moment, yes. the probability of a tornado is, from what i can tell, from my vantage point, pretty low. it's still -- it still could get more organized here as it

continues east/northeastward, but at the time, it's not producing any indications that it's going to tornado soon. >> okay. kevin, thank you. don't go too far from your phone. we may be calling you back, depending on what changes in the skies above you. samantha mohr is in our severe weather center. samantha, tell me what you're seeing on that radar. >> we're going to start out with a big picture and show you just how much watches are in place right now, brooke, you can see they extend all the way from wisconsin, stretching down into illinois, eastern missouri, in through arkansas, and then also, of course, into oklahoma, where our focus has been with these two cells that are currently being warned on here, these two areas with tornado warnings. now the one we're most concerned about that's on its way towards moore or towards norman, oklahoma, that currently has a severe thunderstorm warning on it. does not have a tornado warning on it, does not have a confirmed tornado yet, so it is a severe

thunderstorm warning and moving off to the east around 25 miles per hour. it's taking a little bit more of a northerly path, and if it does so, it could move into moore within the next 30 minutes or so. if it continues a little bit more on an easterly path, it could take it into norman, oklahoma, which you mentioned, of course, a lot of people who live in moore have been staying in norman since the devastation from that ef-5 last week. so this is the area we are most concerned about if it continues on that easterly path. it will likely take it into norman within about the next 30 minutes. so we'll certainly let you know which way it deviates during the next 30, 45 minutes. brooke? >> okay. as we watch the path and see what trajectory this storm takes, chad myers, who has been on the phone, i understand, is now in front of a camera. here you are, chad. where are you? >> i am about five miles east of

chickasha, very close to where your other reporter was from. brooke, i'll tell you what, i'm on a five-second delay, you're on a two-second delay. viewers have to understand we're using brand new technology here, but the storm is behind me. this is the part of the storm i wanted to show you, the lowering of the cloud on the southwestern part of the storm. off to the right, pan off to the right, that's where the hail would be. that's your hail core, all the way over there. coming around what we're seeing here, the rain shaft, no tornado out of the back of the storm just yet, but this is the part that would be the hook, the appendage on the back of the storm itself, and what else we're doing here, we're with the university of oklahoma. i'm going to bring you over here slowly, i know this picture does take a little while to get to you. that's okay, how this technology works, but this is a doppler radar on wheels. they are literally slicing this storm in very many pieces from the lower levels, all the way up to the upper levels. that's how fast that radar goes around, and we're seeing the

radar cut through the storm, looking for the worst of it, sending this data back to the weather service in case there does need to be a tornado warning at any time. you have to understand sometimes radars are 30, 40, 50 miles away. this radar right now is about six miles away from the rotation of this storm, brooke. >> incredible. i'm going to give you a second to put that phone up by your ear so you can hear me. i know we have this delay, but this technology is truly impressive now as we really have improved how we can predict and see how the storms form. we still don't know, as sam was pointing out, the path that they will take, but again, explain to us when you're looking at these clouds, chad, a wall cloud. what is that again? >> it is really where the uplift of the storm is the most impressive. it's the rotating part of the super cell thunderstorm. it's the meso cyclone itself, a

low pressure center in the backside of the tornado forming storm. not a tornado yet, but it's the lowering part that the tornado would come out of, and that's the part there. it looks very unimpressive right now. all i'm seeing is one little, almost cotton ball puffs. that, in fact, is called scud, the rapidly rising air getting up in the storm. the lowering has gone away, a little bit of the intensity of the storm has gone away. that doesn't mean it's over, that means it's cycling. nothing attempting to affect this storm. ki look left, i can look right, there's not another storm for 20 or 30 miles. this storm gets to use all of the moisture, all of the heat. it's very muggy where i'm standing right now. i bet the relative humidity is 97%. the temperature in our car says 79. that means dew point around 78, 77 for you weather people out there. real muggy air mass, a lot of humidity, a lot of potential for

this storm to still continue to develop. this is what we hope for. let this storm rotate itself out and kill itself. that would be fantastic and then nothing would get on the ground. i'm just not convinced, brooke, that's the way of this storm. this has a lot more going for it here simply because there's a lot more time. this is still the early part of the day. to my east, the sun still out. that air is still very warm out there. brooke? >> and again, just going back to that voice of calm we heard, the man on the phone with me from moore, oklahoma, and, you know, he is going on about his business, heading to the church, helping people clean up. as we're looking at these clouds, the storm could head more towards moore, could head more towards norman. at what point, chad, do the sirens go off? >> well, that, actually, is determined by the emergency manager of the county sometimes. even in cobb county, georgia,

where i live, if a tornado watch is posted and a severe thunderstorm warning was issued, the sirens would go off. kind of a little misnomer, that has been repaired. there has to be a little bit of a different threshold, so, yes, as soon as the tornado warning goes off from the national weather service, then that threshold is there and the sirens go off. we are mails from any city. there may not be a siren for us to hear right here in this area, that's why it's so important to have that noaa weather radio on. i want you to get a noaa weather radio that has s.a.m.e. technology, s.a.m.e. it means that you can program your county, grady, oklahoma county, where it might go next, or even canadian, that's the county you will program in. maybe even one county to your west so you have a little extra protection, extra time, but once that warning is issued for you, the radio goes off, you know it's you, and you go to take

shelter right away. even if it's a severe thunderstorm warning like it is at this point in time, there's still wind and hail damage happening somewhere, just not where we're standing, because we know where to place ourself to get the best picture, yet not be in the way of any significant problems whatsoever. we are in no danger right here, brooke. >> chad myers, you know about tornados more than anyone else at cnn, having worked as you have in oklahoma city. thank you so much for your bit of expertise today. and when we come back, not too terribly far, chad, as you mentioned, in a very rural area of oklahoma, oklahoma city, of course, incredibly populated. just about a 30-mile drive from moore. we're going to take you to that city live next. breaking news here on cnn. people join angie's list for all kinds of reasons. i go to angie's list to gauge whether or not the projects will be done in a timely fashion and within budget. angie's list members

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once again we are watching the radar, watching live pictures here as there are two active tornado warnings in oklahoma and in the city, specifically we have george howell. >> what we see right noi, a mix of blue sky and thick, cumulus clouds. the clouds are clearly moving fast. that storm xhad has been talking about is two hours south, could certainly move through moore. right now you can tell people are paying very close attention to the weather. this area has been hit hard. oklahoma has showed us that tornadoes can happen very quickly. remember, that the day before -- hello? that's what we're keeping an eye on, to see how the system plays out here, continues to this area. >> george, i know you were in

moore. i know you were in moore for the president when he was there last sunday. you continue to report, when i was there i know a lot of people who lost their homes not only were they in norman, oklahoma put up in the dorms at ou but also in oklahoma city those who could afford the hotels. have you talked to anyone who lives in this part of the country who is concerned or as we heard from the gentleman we talked to living in moore, not yet? >> i think there is definitely concern and if you hear background noise that might be chad myers and his crew here on the scene with me. i can tell people are paying very close attention to the weather. people have weather apps out, radar. also monitoring the storm with their helicopters. everyone is paying very close attention because that's just what they do here. this area is used to -- they are

accustomed to tornadoes. they know how to move quickly. many people have the noaa weather radios chad mentioned so that is what people are doing, watching the storm as it moves through. again, right now, a lot of blue sky, big clouds, big storm to the south, others to our north. we're all watching. we're leaving. we're leaving. >> okay. george, you're breaking up. i'll let you go. that was george howell our correspondent in oklahoma city. two active tornado warnings, big clouds, but i say this loosely having talked to a couple storm chasers, chad saying just be careful, take cover if you are in the path of the storm. several of the storm chasers saying, in looking at these clouds and saying they're still unorganized which is a good sign. hopefully it will just spin out and kill itself and tornadoes will not be spawned.

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samantha moore live from the cnn severe weather center with tornado watches in effect in wisconsin all the way down into north texas right now. and our focus has been on the cell which is northeast of chickasay now moving toward norman and moore, oklahoma to the east around 20 miles per hour at this time. we are watching very carefully. it could be moving into moore or norman within the next 45 minutes or so. we will take you live to the ground in oklahoma city right after this quick break. there's a lot i have to do... check my blood sugar, eat better. start insulin. today i learned there's something i don't have to do anymore. my doctor said with levemir® flexpen... i don't have to use a syringe and a vial.

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i want to make sure you stay with us on cnn as we continue coverage of the breaking news, two active tornado warnings in oklahoma. jake tapper will be all over it at the top of the hour on "the lead." as for me, i know we've been talking a lot oklahoma but i am here in boston and i just want to tell you we're in front of the td garden where it is a huge night. this night means a lot for the city of boston, the people who survived the bombings over a month ago. when you talk about the artist and we talked to james taylor and we'll post that incredible interview on the brooke log cnn.com/brooke, james taylor, aero smith, new kids on the block, jimmy buffet, carole king, boston, several special guests. i know a number of the survivors will be there tonight. you can watch it all streaming live starting at 7:00 eastern. just go to cnn.come and we will have much more coverage tomorrow on the show. of course at 2:00 eastern.

for now, boston, thanks for having me back. got to go to the show. i'm brooke baldwin. the lead with jake tapper starts now. breaking news right now. take cover if you're anywhere near oklahoma city. i'm jake tapper. and this is "the lead." our national lead as we speak, potential for another violent tornado in the very last place of the country that can with stand it. the exact same region of oklahoma that was devastated by an ef-5 tornado last week. tornado warnings are in effect for a wide swath of the country, including the already reeling community of moore, oklahoma, which is still littered with debris from the tornado that killed 24 people. joining us on the phone right now is cnn meteorologist chad myers, who is in the area where the storms could hit. chad, where exactly are you and what is the