sleep. on top of that, they brought their family members in here, that way they don't have to be concerned what's happening to their family members and their pets. they have them in a different location, but they can take care of them, as well. so they're taking care of the staff. that way the staff can take care of the patients. ari, one of the doctors told me, he hopes this is the most boring hurricane ever. as an e.r. doctor, i echo his sentiments. but at the same time, prepared for it to be the worst ever. again, this is the hospital to be at if something does happen. >> i want to turn now to bonnie schneider. bonnie, there is good news and bad news. the good news we talked about a little bit, which is while a category 3 is very serious, it's a downgrade. the bad news appears that the eye of the storm is so crucial to the threat level, is creeping

more towards the united states. >> the storm surge forecast has not changed, despite the fact that it is a category 3 storm. this is still a major hurricane and a very large one. we have the center of it at 45 miles east of vero beach, florida, where we're getting reports of very strong winds, some over 60 miles per hour. the maximum winds at 120 miles per hour. so this is still a strong category 3. category 4s and 5s are rare, so a category 3 is a major hurricane, and expecting it to sustain that strength, perhaps strengthen a little bit more by friday morning, and then weaken a bit. but these are just slight variations of five miles per hour. it's not until we talk about saturday that we see a substantial weakening. the track since the 11:00 p.m. advisory is somewhat offshore. that's good news. that will keep the core of the

strongest winds offshore. not to say we're not going to see hurricane force winds offshore, as the storm is below the 50 mile marker closer to florida. we have hurricane force winds, winds that are 74 miles per hour or greater are extending out 60 miles. let's take a closer look at the storm surge threat i was mentioning. this has not changed. west palm beach to ft. pierce, 4 to 6 feet for storm surge. this is really the problem area, melbourne to savannah, 7 to 11 feet, familiarly here in coastal georgia, coastal south carolina, and into northern florida. you can see that red line there, especially as it works into south carolina and georgia. the funnels effect that we could see with the water is really important. you know, the storm is unusual in the fact instead of making a direct march to the coast, it's parallel to the coast.

as it does that, we're looking at the threat of water piling up. that holds true for north carolina, as well. it's a little less north of wilmington. looking at 4 to 6 feet, the potential for storsurge. of course, the warnings continue because we're looking at hurricane force winds, especially with the slow movement of the stop. and also the rainfall threat. are we going to see a lot of rain? we're certainly seeing it in florida. but look what's ahead. for south carolina, right here in southeast north carolina, wilmington, we could be seeing ten inches or more. once we get to 12 inches, we'll be talking about a foot. so looking at the potential of heavy rain. a lot of that has to do with the movement of the storm. it's moving in this direction, coming into the natural bend of georgia and florida. of course, near south carolina. the forecast takes it further away from south carolina, which is good. but just coming up this close

just piles the water in. the storm surge area, we're concerned about and the coastal evacuations that have continued for georgia, south carolina, as well as parts of coastal florida. i just want to emphasize, the storm surge threat particularly has not changed for hurricane matthew. ari? >> thank you for that. you mentioned how serious it is. we have just moments ago information in new from florida power and line, over 213,000 outages now. that's in the state of florida alone. so obviously affecting a lot of families. stay with us as we track hurricane matthew all morning long on msnbc. we'll be right back. >> many of us have dealt with storms in the past, charley, francis, jean, wilma. this is like none of those.

welcome back to our live coverage. 2:37 a.m. on the east coast.

at this hour, hurricane matthew is a strong category 3, 70-mile-an-hour winds recorded on vero beach. more than 140,000 power outages reported. indeed, florida in the last few minutes, updated that to over 200,000. and walt disney world has had to close for the fourth time ever. nbc's ron mott is with us from daytona beach. ron, it looks like it's even stronger than the last time i checked with you. what can you tell us? >> reporter: good morning, ari. it's starting to get a little tougher to stand up right here, with tends with swirling the way it is, just outside our hotel. remarkably, the power is still on, at least in this part of daytona beach. we're crossing our fingers that we make it through the rest of the night, with the power not likely. once the winds pick up stronger,

you'll see it flicker on and off. and while the wind is a problem, it's always the storm surge that are the potential deadly threat they bring. we're expecting 7 to 11 feet for storm surge. we got a little bit of good news. the eye, the projected forecast for the eye to be a little further out over the water. that's great news. the problem is, by the time the eye gets up here, it will be right around high tide. so it's going to be much higher and we an tess pate that water will find ways inland into the intercoastal waterway. so all of those beautiful properties could expect to see some water into their homes and some of the businesses closer to

the ocean front here. a lot of people did heed the advice to go to shelters. we did not see a whole lot of vehicular traffic during the day on thursday. so that was good news. very little traffic on thursday night. but we don't want people, and officials are emphasizes this, as well. don't come out after this eye has past, thinking the worst is over. because there are going to be several more hours to endure. maybe well into friday night and saturday morning. of course, we've been talking about this forecast, turning this storm a big hard right monday, tuesday. it may be coming back this way, just as we're starting to hear things starting to snap. we'll go ahead and send it back to you. >> ron, thank you very much. and stay safe. we want to turn to ed cunningham from the ft. pierce, florida police department. tell us how you're coping with the storm and how it's affecting your regular practices.

>> right now, we're in the middle of the winds. it's pretty heavy blowing out there. we've had to pull all officers off the street for their safety. they can't go out to any call right now, and the same with the fire department. so everybody is hunkered down at the police station, waiting for this to pass so we can get back on the street and see what the damage is. >> are you getting any emergency calls? >> well, i don't have that information available to me right now. but if anybody -- we let people know we won't be able to respond after winds hit 45 miles per hour. so hopefully they realize that. >> interesting. so your position basically as a practical matter, as a matter of safety, police are not going to be out tonight because of the threat. >> right. officers want to be able to get out there and help out and do

what they can, but they just won't be able to get where they want to go. they will just have to hold off and way until the winds slow sometime later this afternoon, and then they can get out there. >> when do you make that assessment, early morning? will you take another look at the weather and winds and decide whether or not you can go back to a more standard procedure? >> we determine that 45 miles per hour is the threshold of where, but if it's below 45, we'll go out on the streets. >> copy. ed cunningham from the ft. pierce police, thank you for joining us here in the early morning. i want to turn now to a reporter from wesh tv in orlando. things are starting to pick up there? >> reporter: they absolutely are. we've been out here since 3:00

yesterday afternoon. just within the last hour, the gust, wind, rain, has all picked up. i know it's tough to see right now, but there's just driving rain whipping around from the north and crossing over. we're in melbourne, florida, just north a couple of miles of enter national airport and about four miles from the coast. as you can imagine, the wind is getting stronger. the sustained wind is getting stronger. some of the gusts that we've seen in this area have reached the 50, 55, possibly 60-mile-an-hour range. i know this was a reported 71-mile-an-hour gust to the south. just heard you talking about ft. pierce not being able to go and get people with emergency services. they decided it was just too dangerous. we've had numerous transformers

pop, and they decided not to be out on the road right now. the barrier islands just to the east of melbourne, they were told to evacuate two days ago. we're hoping that everyone just took heed to that order and decided tay were going to get out of dodge. other folks are hunkering down here in our area right now. hope any they're staying safe as these powerful gusts come in. we've known that 1:00, 2:00 here tonight was going to be the time that we were going to start to see this increase. it sounds like of the course of the next hour, we're going to start to see some sustained hurricane force winds come through this area. and it will be the happening here first, then go up the coast. >> i don't think this storm will

be anywhere near andrew was. do i think we need to be concerned and watchful? yes, i do. but it's just being prepared and making the best of what you can.

we've already seen wind gusts here over 70 miles per hour, and over 150,000 customers without power. it's going to be a long night here and a long couple of days up the coast.

>> hurricane matthew still on the move at this late hour. the eye of the storm has moved closer to the east coast of florida as we approach 3:00 a.m. on the east coast, and it's bringing with it sustained winds up to 120 miles per hour. more than 200,000 people in florida have lost power tonight, thanks to those very gusty winds. i want to turn now to the national hurricane center. john, walk us through what it means what we've been reporting here in our live coverage that we have a strong category 3, but downgraded slightly, and there is evidence, there are indications that the eye of the storm is moving closer to the united states. >> yes. that is right. the eye of the system isn't far offshore. it's only about 30 or 40 miles east of the east central coast of florida. with most hurricanes, you have the strongest winds confined to an area near the eyewall. those winds are just off the florida coastline. we have seen the winds

increasing steadily in the vero beach area toward cape canaveral. winds are gusting just below hurricane force. and we do anticipate some of the stronger, hurricane force winds making their way on shore during the next few hours. again, in that's central portion of the state. >> so john, what do you look at, at this point in time in this kind of hurricane where you have a situation where some of the lower, more southern parts of florida seem to have been spared, but we've heard from multiple experts saying we're not by any means in the clear. there's a lot more left to unfold. >> that's a true statement. so for south florida, the miami area, conditions are certainly improving. miami, ft. lauderdale and the palm beach area, they will

improve over the next several hours. but other areas are going to see the worth of the weather during the next few hours, in the morning hours. but for well up in the jacksonville area, we won't see weather reach its worst until later on during the day on friday, likely the afternoon and evening hours. the tricky part is, will it make landfall or stay just offshore? it's critical to see how strong the wind also -- winds will be. >> why is it at a basic level so hard to predict exactly where the storm front will go? in other words, if someone watching at home and having watched this coverage and wondering what's happening and all the families and people affected in florida, saying wait a minute, why can't we just exactly say it is or isn't going to make landfall? >> first off, we've come a long

way with that category. a decade or two ago, our decades were nearly double of what they are today. so we are improving and that is thanks to technology. but it's always going to be an imperfect science. it's just the nature of the weather business. we look at a variety of weather models. some of them are very good, but all of them have errors. this is just the nature of the science. it will just never be perfect. but that said, our forecast, we're zoning in on a system generally moving very near the coast, either making landfall or just offshore. that's really what's turning out to be this evening and throughout the day tomorrow, too. >> final question, what do you say to people if we do have the best case scenario and we have very little damage or devastation tomorrow and some people say oh, did we spend more evacuating than we would have by

staying, which seems like a misread of what is going on. >> this is a monster just off the coast. this is something we deal with a lot here at the hurricane center, and communicating and educating people. this is not the case where the system didn't materialize or didn't strengthen. it's a strong system, it's a category 3, but it's just offshore. so what we encourage people in florida, regardless if you can't significant impacts or less impacts, we want you to just be aware that this system materialized and if your area turns out to not have much damage, you lucked out by a narrow margin. >> i think you put that very well. if folks were worried about being struck by lightning, the answer is, there was a lot of devastating lightning and you're lucky if it didn't hit your house. john, thank you for joining us.

i want to go back -- before we turn it over and go back to bonnie for one more update. >> i definitely agree with the national hurricane center. this storm is a category 3, and we're watching for a very heavy rain band north of ft. pierce right now. you can see that the eye right now is fairly close to florida, but we're anticipating the storm to ride the periphery of florida. a major hurricane, category 3 right now, 55 miles east-southeast of melbourne florida and 120-mile-per-hour winds. it will maintain that intensity through friday evening and weaken by saturday, according to the most recent track. but still a hurricane by saturday night. hopefully this turn will move it away from the u.s., but we're going to see dangerous storm surge. so even though we're at a

category 3, this is still a dangerous surge. 7 to 11 feet, that has not changed with the water piling in. high water poses a major threat. whether or not the storm comes on shore, of course, we're watching hurricane matthew. we're watching for that storm surge threat to continue. ari? >> i think i can speak for many when i say i learned a lot from you tonight. there have been some good notes with what you've been showing us. that does it for me this hour. but don't go anywhere. my colleague will continue our special live overnight coverage here. a lot more to track as we figure out how close this devastating category 3 hurricane gets to the mainland and will it make landfall? all of that ahead with alex. keep it locked right here on

msnbc.

good morning, everyone. i'm alex witt in new york. at this hour, 3:00 a.m. here on the east coast, and hurricane matthew has been downgraded to a

category 3. but that does not mean it is any less dangerous. battering the southeast with sustained winds, up to 120 miles per hour in some areas. in florida, where mandatory evacuations have been ordered for 1.5 million people. governor rick scott warned residents to take this storm seriously. >> evacuate, evacuate, evacuate. if you need to evacuate and you haven't, evacuate. this storm will kill you. time is running out. >> he couldn't say it often enough, evacuate, more than 213,000, though, remain without power. residents are preparing for more damage, as the eye of the storm is moving closer to the east coast. president obama signed a state of emergency for georgia, as well, where the storm surge could be worse than the one that flooded new york and new jersey back in 2012 with