see it. thank you for your input. jake should be back tomorrow. i'm bill weir and you can find me on twitter. let's turn it over to wolf blitzer with the very latest on the day's happenings. he's in "the situation room." thanks very much. happening now, breaking news. we have new details on the bloody rampage at ft. hood, texas. we're learning much more about the shooter, his mental health, and the weapon and the moment of heroism when a female mp confronted the gunman. defense secretary chuck hagel will speak shortly and will have new information about the shootings. we'll bring you that live. and we're expecting officials to make a big announcement of the hunt for malaysian flight 370. searchers are urgently trying to locate a black box signal before the batteries die. plus, look at this. a massive cloud wall approaching kansas city right now as tornado

and flood watchers are up for millions of people in the central and southern united states. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." take a look at a massive cloud wall closing in on kansas city. part of a very severe weather system. it's one of three major stories that we're following this hour. there's breaks news in the deadly shooting rampage in ft. hood, texas, and a major turn, potentially in the search for flight 370. as officials say they are about to hold -- and i'm quoting them now -- a big news conference. that's coming up. our reporters are standing by with the kind of special coverage that only cnn can deliver. let's begin in ft. hood, texas, where pamela brown is on the scene for us with the very latest. pamela? >> wolf, at this hour, we're learning that sources from the

fbi and army investigators are being looking at lopez's cell phone and computer and interviewing witnesses. investigators are still trying to figure out the why, why did lopez open fire on his fellow soldiers? he talked about the fact that investigators are looking into a verbal altercation between lopez and another soldier and says that soldier's unstability played a role in what happened. cnn has learned that the handgun lopez used in wednesday's shooting was purchased here at guns galore, a few miles from the base on march 1st, shortly after he arrived in texas. sources tell cnn they do not believe that he was planning a shooting at the time. investigators don't know what set the 34-year-old off except that he was undergoing an oong

tea and sleep disorder. he walked into a medical brigade base and began shooting. >> take shelter immediately. >> immediately the base goes on lockdown. >> we have an active shooter coming in. >> but witnesses say he isn't finished. >> get into a vehicle, fire from a vehicle, get out of the vehicle, walked into another building and opened fire again. >> reporter: lopez gets into a vehicle and fires off more shots, then walks into a second administrative building and opens fire on the soldiers there. fear sweeps across the base. >> we have multiple gunshot victims. we also have people escaping through windows. >> it looked like there were a bunch of bugs and they just scattered. everyone instantly went to their rooms, locked their doors and you could just feel the intensity and the sense of fear in the area. >> we have currently two victims

with gunshot wounds. there's one walking around conscious and breathing, wound to his left side. >> within 15 minutes, local police arrived on the scene. outside in a parking lot, a female police officer confronts lopez. he walks towards her, raises his hands in the air and suddenly reaches into his jacket and pulls out his gun. >> she pulled out her weapon and then she engaged and then he put the weapon to his head and he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. >> reporter: when it's over, four people are dead, including lopez. 16 more or injured. tonight, some remain in critical condition. and wolf, it's clear that the death toll could have been even higher if it wasn't several acts

of heroism. a chaplain shielded and saved soldiers' lives. this is the second shooting here in 4 1/2 years. >> we'll have much more about the female mp coming up. she deserves a lot of gratitude. let's get more on the soldier who went from one ft. hood building to another firing a handgun. miguel marquez has been looking into the shooting. what have you discovered. >> reporter: he had a long history of mental illness and yet they never picked up on it. they never understood how serious it was and that it could turn into this. we spoke to neighbors who said they saw him at noon and he

waved good-bye. he went to the leasing office, added his wife to the lease, and then said good-bye and went off. a few hours later he was shooting people dead. here's how one neighbor described him as he left the apartment complex. >> what did he seem like? >> pretty fine, happy. he didn't seem like the type that would do what he did. >> reporter: you saw him at noon yesterday? >> yes. >> what was he doing? was he coming or going? >> he was going back. he was pretty fine. he seemed happy. >> reporter: and shockingly, not only people who knew this guy had this impression of him, everything normal on the surface, but boiling underneath and even the military did as well because in hindsight they can see that he suffered from these issues. he said he suffered from ptsd but that was never diagnosed.

had he anxiety and other issues that he was dealing with and on a drug regiment at the time. it is not clear what everything was that was going on there. in the last press conference, the general also not being able to pinpoint what set him off. there was some discussion about an argument with somebody on base but it's not clear that this is premeditated at all. wolf? >> you're going to be getting more for us as well. investigators try to learn what led to the ft. hood shootings, the army says that it's clear that a history of instability and psychiatric issues certainly at the core of this deadly incident. let's get more now from our pentagon correspondent barbara starr. barbara? >> wolf, general milley had some really stunning words about the condition of lopez, the alleged shooter. i want you to have a listen. >> we have very strong evidence that he had a medical history that indicates unstable

psychiatric or psychological condition, going through all of the records that that is in fact correct and we believe that to be the fundamental under lying factor. >> a history of instability, mental instability and psychiatric and psychological conditions. we know that he had multiple prescription medications, including ambien. this will be just the beginning of the medical history that they will look at because the question on the table will be, did military mental health care potentially, possibly miss some sign that this man was headed for such trouble? we know that he bought a weapon on march 1st. we don't know the last time that he saw a military health care provider but that health care provider, if they knew he had a weapon, did they miss some signs? did they miss any indications that this might be about to

happen? this is going to be just one area of the investigation. >> he had a four-month tour of duty in iraq. four months. usually for soldiers it's at least a year. often it was 15 months when the u.s. deployed tens and thousands of troops in iraq. that raised some red flogs, in my mind, and i know that you've been looking into this. were there any signs of mental instability then? >> well, we don't know if he had mental issues that far back but he did serve -- you're right, the last four months of 2011 in iraq when the military was wrapping up operations there. they were sending people over sort of on wrap-up duty on much shorter tours. there's no indication in the records at this point that specialist lopez suffered any traumatic injuries, was in any

explosions, such as ieds, no indication that he was combat injured in any way. we do know that subsequently he reported he get he had a traumatic brain injury and he was being evaluated for posttraumatic stress but that diagnosis was never made. that was never a complete diagnosis. so that four month tour of duty in iraq, as you point out, wolf, quite short compared to the 15 months, year-long tours that tens and thousands of troops endured in very tough combat conditions. >> he served in the puerto rico national guard and then when he was around 30 decided to become a full-time u.s. soldier. is that what happened? >> yeah. that seems to be the indication. he joined the puerto rican national guard sometime around 1999 and around 2010 decided that he wanted to join the military full time. there's an awful lot of people that do that.

very typical. that's one of the reasons we're told that you see this person in his mid-30s still at the rank of specialist which is a much more junior enlisted rank in the army, not something you would expect from somebody in their 30s. time in the national guard, additional time on active duty. but i think at this point that the military is going to scour through every record and piece of information that they have and see what they can learn that will help them resolve what happened here and why, wolf. >> then we'll know everything about this specialist very, very soon, including several months he served with the u.s. military in sainai as well. thanks very much. barbara, we're going to have much more coming up. also, defense secretary chuck hagel is expected to have new information on the ft. hood

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the ft. hood massacre is concerned. that's expected momentarily. meanwhile, we're learning more about the moment of heroism when a female mp confronted the ft. hood gunman and helped put an end to the carnage at that base. brian todd is looking into that part of the story. >> reporter: clearly a dramatic scene. the shooter covered a lot of ground before he took his own life. there was one person who stood between him and potentially a lot more casualties and that person never gave ground. ivan lopez first opened fire in the medical brigade building and then used his weapon again shooting from a car. he then worked into the transportation battalion building and fired again and then moved into a parking lot. his destruction, while terrifying, could have been so much worse had it not been for one female mp. officials won't release the mp's name, saying she's germain

investigation but they say she's likely with the 89th mp brigade. she arrived in the parking lot four minutes after the 911 call. lopez approached her from 20 feet away, put his hands up and reached under his jacket and pulled out his gun. >> she interpreted that as a threat, correctly so, and then engaged him with small arms fire at which time the shooter did a self-inflicted gunshot wound. >> most police officers probably would have stepped back and waited for backup but she stepped forward. >> reporter: a former mp captain at ft. hood, was responsible for patrols on base, carter believes she was patrolling by herself. she had gone through 18 weeks of training, carter says, including a segment on a range called shoot, no shoot. >> and you have to make a decision on the range as to whether to engage or not. they are designed to create that quick second impulse because

that's all you have in that kind of a situation. >> now that mp is following in the foot steps of another very brave female police officer who stopped the shooting at ft. hood. that officer was kimberly mummy. she was wounded in 2009 by nidal hasan. she got several commendations. this mp who acted yesterday so bravely, wolf, will likely receive an award for valor and may be slated for a promotion but the officer in 2009 ended up losing her job because she was a civilian and the army did not renew the contract so she ended up losing her job. >> the base commander mark milley says there was a chaplain who shielded soldiers from gunfire while one of the incidents of the shootings was going on. shielded them from gunfire, broke a window, and got some of the soldiers out and they are not releasing that chaplain's

name either. another hero on the scene yesterday. >> thank you very much, brian. good report. a lot more information to share with all of you. we're taking you over to the twitter account for the next 15 minutes to answer your question about this story. tweet your questions and use #sitroom. the ft. hood gunman killed three people, 16 others were wounded. we have an update on their condition now from dr. steven sibbett, chief medical officer at the scott & white memorial hospital. thank you for the work that the men and women of your hospital are doing. what's the latest as far as those that are wounded are concerned? >> thank you, wolf. what i can share with you is we received three critically wounded individuals and six seriously wounded soldiers. currently we have three that the

critically wounded have been downgraded to serious and we discharged four and two are proclaimed in good condition. all are making solid, good recoveries due to the focused efforts of our dedicated care team. >> that's encouraging news. doctor, what's the nature of their injuries? >> nature of their injuries, all of the injuries were single gunshot wounds. they ranged from grazing-type injuries all the way through to penetrating injuries to the neck, the chest, the abdomen and the extremities. >> are there any complications treating all of these wounded? i assume they are all military personnel, right? >> yes, sir. there were eight males and one female. >> and people have already been pointing them out, some of them? >> yes. we've actually discharged four today, this afternoon. >> but nobody is still in critical condition.

hopefully that means they will all survive, all of the wounded? there were 16 that were wounded. >> according to our trauma -- lead trauma surgeon at this point, everybody is making recoveries as expected. we're not totally out of the woods until we declare the seriously wounded in a higher or better condition but everything is pointing in the positive direction. >> i know you treated some of those who were wounded in the ft. hood massacre by major nidal hasan back in 2009. can you compare the injuries that were sustained then and now? >> well, we've received more gravely wounded individuals. this time, we had three critically injured individuals back in 2009 we received a higher number of critically wounded individuals. so almost the same number of wounded individuals but more critically injured back in 2009.

no nonetheless, still incredibly traumatic no matter the degree of their wounds. >> doctor out there near ft. hood, thanks to you and thanks to all of your colleagues for all of the very, very critically important work that you are doing. we appreciate it. >> thank you. when we come back, another breaking story we're following, what's being called a big news conference, their words, a big news conference expected in the search for malaysian flight 370. we're going live to the staging area in perth, australia where, that search is expected to resume shortly. plus, my live interview with a u.s. commander assisting in the search effort, commander william marks is standing by. and another major story we're following, much of the midwest right now bracing for severe weather. tornado watches are posted across much of the region. our own chad myers is standing by with the latest forecast. stay with us. you're in "the situation room."

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we're following today is the search for flight 370. what we're told by officials in australia, there is going to be a big news conference. we're expecting it soon. cnn's kyung lah is joining us from perth, australia, where the search is expected to resume fairly soon. what are the details? they are giving us a statement saying that this is going to be a big announcement but haven't told us what. is that right? >> that's right. what we know is that this is being characterized to us as a big news conference. we don't know what it is about but we know it will come from the man in charge of the entire operation expected to make some sort of news about the operational capacity of this search. cnn has learned the british royal navy ship will conduct a specific search today. time is running out on the black

box pinger batteries, expected to die in the next few days, if very haven't already. but today a big operational news conference is expected but it's unclear how significant it will be. the australian ship "ocean shield" with a pinger locator on board will be inside the new specific search area. in the meantime, the prime ministers of malaysia and australia thank troops from eight station who is have hunted relentlessly for more than two weeks. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. >> reporter: but what neither leader could really give is a direction of the location of the missing plane. >> we cannot be certain of the success in the search for flight mh-370, but we can be certain that we will not rest. >> the search area is vast and the conditions are not easy. but a new refined area of search

has given us hope. >> reporter: officials have arrived here at the base in australia as the family members continue to blast it is court for it is poor handling of the investigation. the most vocal is the chinese families. >> it was ridiculous that a flight heading to beijing but it turned west and flying over malaysia for more than one hour but they didn't take any action. it was ridiculous. >> reporter: the malaysian government maintains that they are doing all they can and the civil aviation chief insisted that he had answered all of their questions. >> overall they haven't handled it well. i think they are improving significantly in the last week or so but early on, definitely not. >> reporter: malaysian's prime minister refused to field any reporter questions the entire time he was in australia, offering no answers.

or real hope to how long this hunt will go on. the good news today is that the area over the search is expected to have very good weather, good visibility. the very first of the planes taking off in just about 30 minutes. and wolf, again, we're expecting soon this big news conference regarding the operations of this search. wolf? >> we will get right back to you as soon as the conference begins. we want to know what the big announcement is going to be. kyung lah on the scene in perth, australia. joining me now, former ntsb managing director peter goelz and miles o'brien and cnn law enforcement aanalyst tom fuente.

>> we are skeptical but i hope what they've got is some slight indication of a ping that directs their surface vessels with the towed son n sonar. that's what i'm hoping for. that it's not just supposition. >> if theaf ping from one of the flight data recorders, that would be a big announcement. >> huge. that would be worth saying it's a big announcement. >> because at that point, tom, you could really direct the search to a specific location and hopefully locate it. >> wolf, if they are announcing that they have a big announcement and they don't have anything that significant, what a huge mistake to get everybody excited yet again. >> what do you make, miles, of all of this? because earlier there have been several points over the past four weeks, we've been pretty up beat that something is about to break and we've been disappointed when it didn't. what did you make of this? >> wolf, we've been talking

repeatedly about the fact that the malaysians are not very good at communication. it seems to be one of the big problems. we saw the prime minister not even taking a question from reporters. let's hope the australians have not caught this virus and are misstepping here. i think about the poor families just grasping to any bit of hope that they can find and if it isn't really big, shame on the australians as well. now, let me just say, if it is in fact the announcement that there is a ping and they've sat on this for hours, i mean, why would they do that? why wouldn't they announce it right away? >> that's a good point. look, we'll just wait and see what this, quote, big announcement is. we did hear the australian prime minister tony abbott, peter, say that this was the most difficult search operation, quote, ever undertaken. you've been involved in several of these when you were at the ntsb. is that a factually accurate

statement? >> it certainly is. we've been discussing this since day one. this was not going to be an easy search and if there was any hint that there was going to be anything other than months, if not years was being disingenuous from the beginning. >> are you satisfied with where the investigation is right now? >> i have no idea, wolf. we're relying on the authorities that have looked at satellite handshakes and radar data and all of that and we just hope that they are right. >> do you think the malaysians are right when the authorities say that they are doing everything they possibly can? are they doing everything that they possibly can? >> you know, it's difficult to say for certain. i look at the search, however, and this is obviously led by the malaysians and i still see nine or ten aircraft covering a huge chunk of ocean.

i feel like there should be more assets there and i just can't understand why we don't have more aircraft and more ships involved in this at this point. >> do you understand, miles, why they keep changing the search area? >> well, i think that they've begun with guesses and they are covering a large turf. there's a little bit of desperation involved here and so they are moving on quickly and that's probably a good strategy at this point, given the lack of precision that they have on the location. if they had more precise data, you wouldn't be doing this. this is a reflection of the uncertainty that was involved here. you know, if this was a crash that created tiny little pieces, you could be overlooking things. >> there's two ships really now in this search area. the hms echo and "ocean shield" and now we're told they may have something specific that they are

looking for. they spotted something, we don't know what it is, but you've heard these reports? >> yeah. i've heard the reports about an operational breakthrough or enhancement. i hope that it's something substantive. i hope that it's something that really can be followed up on and not just another wild goose chase. >> because she's ships have pretty sophisticated sonar and we know that there's a british submarine in the area as well? >> that's right. they've got the towed array which can pick up the ping. we have a few days left, we hope. let's really pray that they've got something tonight. >> when you've worked, tom, at the fbi, and you were assistant director, you worked with malaysian authorities and chuck hagel is meeting now with the malaysian defense minister who is also the acting transport minister. they are both at a conference, pacific area conference in hawaii. chuck hagel is about to speak fairly soon. we'll have live coverage of that.

but how, in general, is cooperation between the united states and malaysia? >> well, the cooperation that i'm experienced in is the fbi malaysian police force and it's outstanding and still is to this day. and the fbi, with the permanent office in kuala lumpur was invited into this case the night that the plane went missing. reports that the fbi couldn't come and that were false, they were there, have been there, have had additional personnel there from the neighboring offices to help and their police force is outstanding. this is more than a police force case. you have aviation authorities from britain, china, france, the u.s. looking at satellite data, radar data, civil radar data. that's different than the police. >> it's a lot more complex. guys, stand by. we'll wait for that news conference and wait to hear what chuck hagel has to say and we're also awaiting that so-called big announcement coming out of australia. we're covering several breaking

stories in "the situation room." we're about to go inside the search for flight 370 and the u.s. commander assisting in the search, general marks. and much of the u.s. is bracing for severe weather. tornados across much of the midwest. chad myers is standing by with the forecast. and we're standing by for the defense secretary chuck hagel who expected to make comments about the shooting massacre at ft. hood, probably made some comments about the malaysia airliner mystery. all of that coming up right here in "the situation room." we asked people a question, how much money do you think you'll need when you retire? then we gave each person a ribbon to show how many years that amount might last. i was trying to, like, pull it a little further. [ woman ] got me to 70 years old. i'm going to have to rethink this thing. it's hard to imagine how much we'll need for a retirement that could last 30 years or more. so maybe we need to approach things differently, if we want to be ready for a longer retirement.

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let's get some more on the breaking developments for the several of flight 370. a news conference is expected fairly soon in australia with what officials are describing as a, quote, big announcement. joining us on the phone is commander william marks aboard the "uss blue ridge," the command ship. thanks for joining us. do you know what this, quote, big announcement is going to be? >> no, i do not. we're giving our morning reports here, friday morning in the asia-pacific. i'm just as interested as you. i'll be watching cnn. >> we'll have coverage of that immediately once we hear what that big announcement is. apparently it involves some sort of operations detail, whatever that means. we're told it will be released by angus houston, the australian

in search of this overall search effort. we're also told, commander, that the "hms echo" is conducting what officials are describing as a specific search. do you know, commander marks, whether they have some location -- a specific location that they are hot on right now that might be wreckage from the plane or flight data or cockpit voice recorder? >> the last update i got was from the "hms echo" and it was not conclusive. so right now in the search area we have -- there are a number of surface ships. of course the u.s. p-8 is flying once again and also the "ocean shield" has arrived in the general area. so for the ocean shield along with the towed pinger locator has arrived there. the question is, where is there?

it's kind of just a point in the ocean right now. >> so it's not conclusive, whatever they were looking at. it might be something, on the other hand, it might not be something. that's the latest information. i know the british navy has announced that they have a submarine in the area, the tireless as well. do you know if they have spotted anything that is giving us a good trend, a good indication of what is going on? >> well, the last report i had of theirs, they have not had any conclusive hits from their sonar. so if you look across the spectrum of ships, the british aircraft, it's not that we are not seeing stuff. we certainly are. there is debris out there and trash and a lot of other things but no conclusive evidence of wreckage and that's what we really need. once again, our oceanographers are on stand by. they are waiting with these very

complex oceanography complexes to work on this reverse plot. and once they did it, that's where we are going to send the towed pinger locator. we still have a few days and, remember, the battery life on that thing could go a little longer. so we're still hopeful for that. as i mentioned, the ocean shield is in position. we don't know if it's in the right position but it's as close as we can get right now and it's helping out in the search for right now. >> and you're working under the assumption, commander, that the batteries for that flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, the pinger batteries, that they are still operating, you say, a few more days. realistically, what is the longest those batteries could last? >> i'm not exactly the black box expert. however, i do know that 30 days is considered the minimum. so it could certainly last

longer than 30 days and it all depends on where it is. fresher temperature, the ocean conditions all have a factor in that. but, you know, we know if we're within a mile, we've proven with our pinger locator, if we're within a mile of the signal and it's pinging, we're going to hear it. so it's just a matter of getting all of these navy assets out there, finding some debris, working backwards and getting into position. at this point, every second counts because the closer we can get the pinger locator, the more chance we have of hearing it. so that's why we're -- we have a big push going on here in this last week or so to try to get some confirmation of debris. >> commander marks, will the u.s. navy, will the u.s. military, the u.s. assets continue to be involved in the search after you believe that battery for the black boxes has died? >> yeah.

i get a lot of questions about that. i could quote the secretary of defense yesterday. he mentioned that. we have fulfilled every request of the malaysian government and from day one we sent two destroyers out here, we had helicopters out here almost immediately. when the search expanded into the indian ocean, we flew our best planes out here. so right now, this search has -- there are only six p-8 poseidons in the whole world flying fleet missions and this search has two of the six flying in the entire world. so it's getting our best assets and as a request comes in, we try to fulfill it the best we can. >> commander william marks of the u.s. navy, thanks, as usual, for joining us. you've been very helpful over these past several weeks. >> you're welcome. thank you. we'll have much more on the search for flight 370 coming up in the next hour. plus, two other breaking stories we're monitoring right now in "the situation room," we're

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defense secretary hagel is now speaking about the ft. hood massacre. let's listen in. >> to identify any new lessons learned and implement those as well. in the meantime, we will all stay focused on the victims and

their families and the ft. hood community who, yet again, are experiencing a terrible tragedy and much grief. thank you. >> we've got time for some questions. i'm going to give this mike over here, so please wait till you get the microphone before you ask your question. >> thank you, mr. secretary. i want to ask you a little bit more about ft. hood if i could. in 2010 secretary gates called for dozens of changes in defense policy to deal with the insider threat from the first attack. two weeks ago you issued your own report which found that many of those recommendations hadn't been implemented. since that time there have been two shootings on military facilities that have exposed even new gaps in security procedures. and i'm wondering why does it

take four years and four reports to address these security problems? and isn't that unacceptable? why should people believe that what you're saying now means that the pentagon is going to take this challenge seriously? >> well, first, let me assure our country, the people who serve in our armed forces and their families, we do take this seriously. there is nothing that we take more seriously than the safety of the people who work for our department. we recognize the imperfections. we recognize the risks, everyday risks in the jobs that these men and women do for our country. but there's no mistaking the fact that the prioritization among our service leaders, our commanders, our leaders is the safety of those men and women.

obviously, something went wrong. we have made recommendations based on those reviews and we have implemented those recommendations in almost every case going back to 2009. as you noted, 2010. and we'll continue to make the adjustments and implement those recommendations. obviously, we have a gap. any time we lose an individual, something's gone wrong. but i also noted, and i think it's important here that we all keep in mind, let the investigators do their work. we don't know what all the facts are. we know a lot of things 24 hours later, but we don't know everything. what happened? what motivated this person to do this? where was the gap? why did we have a gap? why did it happen? so let me stop there because i think we are going to find out, and we will do everything possible to implement the kinds

of reforms and fill those gaps and assure the security of the men and women who work for our armed forces and assure their families. >> thank you for your hospitality this week, by the way. closer ties with rebalancing to asia, some have suspicions this is all a policy to contain china. how will you respond to that? and how will you respond to the chinese after your trips to japan? >> this was not a visit to contain china. i have said that in my -- >> so there you heard the defense secretary chuck hagel saying they will get to the bottom of what happened in ft. hood, texas. they will make sure lessons are learned, steps are taken, this in the aftermat of what happened some 4 1/2 almost 5 years ago when there was another massacre in ft. hood, texas. stand by. we'll have much more on this. but i want to check in with chad

myers right now, our severe weather expert. chad, there are real fears, serious fears of horrible weather tornadoes erupting in the midwest. what's the latest? >> you bet. this is the 30th anniversary of the superoutbreak. there's snow up here. we expect that. that's the cold part of the storm. it's rotating you there into the very warm part of the storm. all those big red boxes there, those are all tornado watch boxes. we expect tornadoes to pop up and stay with us all night long tonight as we can get drilled right down here to the one near osage beach, this is missouri right now. we'll continue to watch that storm. and there are more along this line. this line is going to fire up again here. we're going to see more storms. i know we saw storms this morning, but those are gone now. the sun has been out all day. these storms are going to get much larger again tonight when the energy of the storm system that's now still to the west, about amarillo, that energy that these storms are waiting for, will punch through tonight.

these storms will probably go all the way through the evening hours after dark. those are the hardest to chase. those are also the hardest to forecast because you don't get a lot of storm chasers in the middle of the night chasing for you. there are storms here, i can keep going, this is now back down toward oklahoma, this is the red river, there are more storms to the north of dallas, texas. a couple of these were rotating for a while, now still developing to the south of dallas that may move into dallas proper here as we get into the next few hours. you have the storm chasers on the storms, we have been watching all of their video coming out from benton, missouri county, all the way down to denton, texas, we expect many more storms, tornadic potential storms that will be rotating all night long through midnight or later, wolf. >> chad myers with the latest on some really bad weather conditions disrupting the midwest. we'll stay on top, we'll get all the latest information from you,

chad. tornado warnings, watches in effect right now. happening now, breaking news, the u.s. army reveals new information about the ft. hood gunman, saying nothing is being ruled out in the search for a motive. we'll hear from people who knew him and his family. the texas military bases reeling after this, the second deadly rampage in less than five years. were there warning signs or security gaps that could have been or should have been seen? and an announcement may be coming in the search for flight 370. we're expecting a news conference. officials in australia say they have a, quote, big announcement to make as search planes get ready to take off. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." this is cnn breaking news. >> and we're following two major breaking news