first, meteorologist cecily tynan and adam joseph have the all important accuweather forecast, cecily lets begin with you. >> on this independence day eve, heading your way. stormtracker 6 live double scan showing this line of intense storms working its way through lancaster coin, more than 100 lightning strike as associated with this, moving to the east at 25 miles per hour. all in the path a storm moving towards chester coin, the national weather service posted severe thunderstorm warning for eastern lancaster county and chester county until 6:45 tonight, this is the leading edge of an intense band of storms, we have severe thunderstorm watches across our viewing area, until 10:00 tonight. also flash flood watches through tomorrow morning, what is going on is a cold front, encountering

the warm humid air, this is helping to kick off the thunderstorms, this will also help move hurricane arthur out to sea. the key times between now and 7:00, the line of storms enerring the suburbs at the i-95 metro area, between 7:00 and 9:00, south jersey the storms are moving in tonight. part of the reason why the buildup of heat and humidity, we are in heat wave number one. part of the reason we get the moisture from arthur, for more details. >> speaking of the tropics we head to the south at myrtle bea beach. arthur is scraping the coastline of north carolina, can you see the center eye void of the cloud cover and the intense winds wrapping around either side of that eye, winds sustain the at 90 miles per hour, and as arthur

pulls up the seaboard, and hooks out to sea, it will pull over cape hatteras where there are hurricane warnings in place. and warnings from duck to ocean beach, but not our delaware beaches. the tropical storm force winds remains off the coast for us locally. tomorrow morning as arthur moves off to sea. tropical downpours in new jersey, it begins to pull out in the afternoon as the sun returns, great timing for the fireworks in philadelphia and the concert on the parkway, turning cool with temperatures back to near 70 by 11:00 with a northerly breeze. when meteorologist cecily tynan comes back she'll lets you know what is in store for the rest of the weekend. >> lets switch live to the ocean city boardwalk and amy buckman, nothing is more synonymous with summer than july 4th at the

jersey shore. >> better yet if you had july 3rd off, it's a perfect beach day. this is 7th street watching people head home with their pizzas and people are up to desert and having ice-cream and we have the band setting up forever the free concert and today was spectacular. >> for the most part the o'connor boys were keeping themselves amused today. conner did go in for a dip. >> it's choppy. >> were you getting tosses around? >> yes. >> was it fun? >> sort of fun. >> they were warned to lift and to the lifeguards and not go in too deep and not go back home because they were bearing the brunt of arthur. >> they are getting hit, we have friends with beach houses and

they are hunkering down. >> you are glad you are here for the week? >> we are glad, we love it up here. >> lifeguards were extra vigilant. >> banning boogie boards and how far swimmers could go. waist deep not much further than that and have a parent around you. >> it was a beautiful beach day and most said they wouldn't let a wet forecast put a damper on their family traditions of a holiday weekend at the shore. >> how concerned are you? >> we are not. it's nice, its night rights now. >> if it's rainy tomorrow? >> we'll wait until it clears up and come back out here again. >> arthur is not coming here, he is afraid of all of us, this posse here will take care of arthur. >> i am back with sam and a.j., enjoying their koors custard.

>> you enjoying yourself? >> yes. >> ocean city has postponed until saturday night and atlantic city the fireworks on sunday. but everybody will still have a great holiday weekend. i'm amy buckman, channel 6 "action news." >> they are so agreeable. right now on 6abc.com and the 6 abc news app, we have a list of fireworks shows. we constantly update the list as cancellations and postponements are coming in. >> if are you in philadelphia this weekend then the wawa welcome america celebration should be at the top of your list of things to do, live on the parkway tonight, "action news" reporter chad pradelli, what is the story with those last minute preparations. still underway very much so, the main strange is still being built, a couple of major

developments, one the philly pops set to perform at independence hall at 8:00. that is moved indoors to the kimmel center. they have talked about this and it's rain is moving into tomorrow morning and organizers say that everything is set to go as planned for tomorrow. >> paul clemson is making the final adjustments getting ready for the party on the parkway, a sound man for the roots. >> you come into the console and gets mixed down to each musician. >> with severe thunderstorms tonight and hurricane arthur moving north there were concerns about tomorrow's festivities, but city leaders do not anticipate any problems. >> all systems are go and we have to be aware of wind and

rights now it's still within the acceptable levels. we are actually all ready and we want everybody to have a good time. >> the event is one of their large of the deployments, they are tight-lipped on security measures but say some officers you'll see and others you will not. >> there is no work day the next day, we are working around that, believing that the crowd will stay down longer than normal. >> as far as security, obviously clear bags, stay away from the coolers, stay away from things we can't see inside. >> 5,000 are expected to pack the parkway, last year there were a few disruptions when teenagers rushed in and knocked over security fencing, but police have a warning for those trying to spoil the fun this year. if anyone is anticipating coming down here to disrupt the events they will have a significant and swift reaction.

>> one performer had to cancel. arianna grande will not perform because of unforeseen family circumstances, still a great lineup tomorrow. the roots and nickie minaj. i'm live on the parkway, chad pradelli, channel 6 "action news." >> of course you can catch all the 4th of july festivities on channel 6, at 10:00 matt o'donnell and tamala edwards hosts the freedom ceremony and then the independenceance day parade and at 7:00 p.m., rick williams and cecily tynan and karen rogers and adam joseph bring you the 4 and of july jam capped off by fireworks off the mousse automatic of art. philadelphia police have charged the man whose mother was founded in his freezer. he turned himself into police this afternoon and is charged with abuse of a corpse, he has

not been seen his his mother andrea was founded in her home. they are waiting for the body to thaw out to determine when and how she died. the cigarette sales tax, the $2 per pack tax would be funneled in the cash strapped school district. and jerry jordan issued a statement saying theedcaters and parents of philadelphia should be proud of how our legislators have advocated for our city's children. meanwhile, school reform commission board member, pritchard, resigned today and he was immediately replaced with long time philadelphia educator and advocate margie nef. and a flag thief coming up someone is scraping old glory in

a community. flyers captain claude giroux has something to say about the incident in canada that put him in jail. jeff skversky with that story. when "action news" continues tonight.

police in doylestown, buck county, are trying to track down the person or people responsible for the preindependent day thievery.

>> reporter: the american flag. >> it gives you a sense of patriotism and freedom. >> think of my father a veteran who sacrificed for the freedom we enjoy. >> someone is vandalizing the flags in doylestown. a dozen flags when missing on east 8th street on tuesday night. >> it's horrible and people are patriotic. >> the idea that someone will go around and do something so heartless is -- i don't understand it. the flags are put up every year and left up until the 4th of july, the city manager noticed the missing flags and notified police. it's actually theft, that is how we are investigating, if someone see its there is quite a consequence to it. police hope it stops and are

asking for flags to before he returned. they hope whoever did this gets caught. >> you don't expect that. it's really disturbing and it's bad behavior. and poor and unpatriotic. >> especially now we are through some many wars and that someone would go around and vandalize this symbol of freedom, especially before the 4 and of july doesn't seem appropriate. trenton's new mayor continued his tour of the city with his citizens. mayor jackson toured the trenton area soup kitchen and will wr

after a night in jail, clude

giroux issuing a statement. >> and charges are not filed. he is apologizing after being arrested for inappropriately touching a police officer at a bar. >> i regret my actions on canada day and sincerely apologize to my fans, teammates and philadelphia flyers organization for my misguided attempt at humor and said it won't affect his preparation for upcoming season. the phillies are looking for stop a stretch of awful baseball, they are trying to avoid their seventh straight loss. phils are shut out 11 times already. only one team in baseball has been shut out more this year and we are not even at the all-star break. we are waiting more than a year to get a look at nerlines

noel. the center will be a beast around the rim. he starts for the sixers in the summer league, and he rehabbed all last season from knee surgery and is healthy and ready to go. >> i am excited and i know i lot of eyes on me. my mentality, to get better but i'm staying focused. i am being patient with the process of coming back through organized games. >> now, while brett brown spent the last year working with noel nk he will not coach him during summer league play, it's lloyd pierce who will give him direction on the floor in orlando. >> we are not too wordried, we want to see him be him. we'll make it simple as well.

world cup continues, if germany beated france, it will be the first country to reach four straight world cup finals. >> jeannie bouchard is the first canadian to reach a grand slam final after winning today in london and will take on 2011 champ petra for the grand slam title. and who says the best catch at a baseball will come from a player, we see highlights over and over again from fans and even stadiums making the play of the day, remember when the phillies beer man made this catch in his bucket, earl cheney without breaking a step goes right back to work and ian rips it down the left hand line and how about the beer vendor, the ball was ripped. lets take another look. everybody is trying to grab for

the ball. he can sell it as a souvenir. give it to a fan right. >> cecily tynan with the accuweather forecast. when we continue in just a moment.

accuweather says we have new developments all the time. >> we have thunderstorms out there. philadelphia it's not storming now but there is a cluster of storms that i'm tracking that are moving out of chester county. the national weather service has

extended it to newcastle county and delaware county. it just happened moments ago. stormtracker 6 live double scan showing this is a pretty intense clustder of storms, crossing route 1 now and moving out of oxford, the past 15 minutes we have 165 lightning strikes and moving to the northeast at 25 miles per hour. so avondale, kennett square and unionville, it's updating now it's all in the path of this storm. malvern as well and this is the first in a series of storms that are rolling in this region in the overnight hours. we even have a tornado warning in affect for the poconos until 6:30 tonight that is out of our viewing area. part of the reason why, this tremendous heat and humidity in philadelphia, 96 degrees and we hit 92 degrees today, this is officially a heat wave, not as oppressive as yesterday, when we

had the heat index above 100, millville 93 and again at the shore, winds out of the southwest it feels better, temperatures in the upper 70s, stormtracker 6 live double scan showing the storms out to the west with a cold front sweeping to the east, a severe thunderstorm watch is in affect until 10:00 tonight. any storm in edition to lightning and heavy downpours could contain gusty winds and hail. we have a flash flood watch in affect through tomorrow morning. these will pull out a lot of moisture from the atmosphere. future tracker showing at 8:00 tonight, the i-95 corridor under the gun and these storms continue to push to the east slowly around 10:00 moving into south jersey and delaware, tomorrow morning you wake up and it's not a sunny morning, lots of clouds with showers, especially across new jersey and delaware, look what happens within we head later in the morning, this is when we get the

moisture from hurricane arthur involved, heavy downpours and south jersey and delaware, all of it is drying out in the afternoon, we are clearing from the west to the east and a bumpy start to the weekend, it's not all that bad, this is the latest on hurricane arthur, you can see a well defined eye, maximum sustained winds 90 miles per hour, another 6 miles per hour, it will become a category 2 hurricane and will likely hit the outer banks of the carolinas, and then the cold front that is causing the storms here will push it out to sea and it will be a couple hundred miles offshore and we'll get the affects at the shore. waves 6 to 8 feet and high surf advisory and a big problem, rip currents, be very careful, but it's not all bad news, melissa magee is in wildwood with the

forecast at the shore. >> reporter: yes, cecily, it looks like on friday we are off to a rocky start because we are tracking the rain that will be on the way for the first half of the afternoon and clearing is on the way for evening hours, more late day breaks with a high of 78, saturday it looks great, and breezy and sun, with a high temperature of 80 and 81 into sunday with plenty of sunshine on the way, not the best start but the finish, and right in between is looking good. >> thank you, the exclusive accuweather forecast, shows tomorrow we have rain in the morning and clearing from the west to the east and the fire works in philadelphia should be fine and saturday just beautiful, 84 and sunday 74 degrees and early next week we get back into the heat and humidity, and tonight at 11:00 arthur will be close to making landfall and i'll have a full

update at 11:00. tonight we congratulation our colleagues brian taff and his wife maura taff on the birth of their twin boys, the fact that maura delivered the boys at the time of the 4:00 news hour is a coincidence, now you know why brian was off, diverted by the most important assignment of his life brian told us my heart is pounding out of my chest with happiness and his sons are healthy and strong and ridiculously cute. we wish them our heartfelt congratulations and best wishes and brady and sawyer, welcome to the "action news" family. >> abc world news is next on channel 6, and please join us for "action news" at 11:00 on

welcome to "world news." tonight, breaking news, bracing for the hurricane as arthur begins to hit. states of emergency, the monster hurricane more than 400 miles wide. mandatory evacuations under way. the new track coming in. where it hits tonight and tomorrow. ginger zee is right here. the showdown in america near the border tonight, the bus full of families who crossed into the u.s. stopped by angry protestors. and new tonight, inside the fiery meeting, neighbors now taking sides. swallowed by a sinkhole, the mother and son in their car plummeting. their 911 call. >> oh, my god! no! another car! >> just as a truck heads for the sinkhole, too. and inside the ship wreck, like a scene out of titanic. this is the real thing tonight.