derek van dam is standing by at the international weather center with the latest developments. u know, we were talking earlier, derek about that storm surge coming in. what can you tell us about the dangers of that? >> the storm surge is one concern that legazpi city is currently dealing with. but did you know there's a volcano within the vicinity of legazpi? and we've got visuals coming out of that region in just one second. this is the volcano within the vicinity of legazpi. this is volcanic ash from a recent eruption. this is an active volcano of the and just around the backside of this tech volcano particular ar, and you can see la gaz at this ci -- legazpi city to the west. it's resulted in what's called a lahar. we have been discussing this as a possibility across this region. and it has, well, shown its unfortunate face here in this area. this is a mixture of what is volcanic debris from recent eruptions in this particular volcano, mixing with the excessive rainfall. and you can see what it does. it creates this effect, almost a mudslide that can really inundate communiti

at the cnn national weather center, derek van dam is standing by with more on the storm. hi there, what is going on? >> well, robyn, we just received information from the typhoon center. 160 miles kilometer, roughly 100 miles an hour for our domestic viewers and the storm is becoming more and more organized as it interacts across the philippines, this storm, robyn, is putting this area in a very precarious region, but it has manila in its region as well. it slowly will edge closer and closer to luzon, and currently it is similar to a category 2, you can see as it interacts with the land throughout the central philippines, it will be downgraded, probably equivalent to a category 1 hurricane and exits the philippines by tuesday and wednesday. nonetheless, our major concerns we're focusing on, heavy rain leading to the possibility of localized flooding. take a look at the impressive rainfall totals. this is just something i have not seen in my years of reporting, upwards of 400 years. this is going into a northwesterly direction, this is a computer model from the cnn world w

let's take you back now to our meteorologist derek van dam. you have been giving us so much vital interesting information about what perhaps this airliner was flying through, derek, when they made the call that they needed to deviate and find a different route. >> no doubt, natalie there, was extreme rough weather in the area at the last point of contact with this particular missing plane. but pilots, keep this in mind, pilots are trained to fly around big thunderstorms. they want to prevent an uncomfortable flight for you and i. they want to make it as comfortable as possible, avoid areas of turbulence, which would be thunderstorms. it's just that these thunderstorms can form so quickly. the typical life span of a thunderstorm, for instance-s typically 45 minutes, and it can shoot up to altitudes of 40,000, even 50,000 feet. and that is really critical when we consider the altitude that they were ascending to when they asked to deviate around these thunderstorms. what we've done here in the cnn world weather center is we've stopped the satelli

let's get to meteorologist derek van dam for an early look at your forecast. >> good morning.is the way we want to start our early weekend. sunshine dominating the new england coast. we are monitoring the low pressure that will bring rain to the gulf coast. and we do have a storm system moving across the pacific northwest. high temperatures for the day, windy city tops 33. 57 for atlanta, georgia. the nation's capital at 45. the big apple at 38 degrees for the afternoon. the bulk of the precipitation waiting to impact southern georgia and florida panhandle by the end of the weekend. a lot of chatter on social media for a snow storm. on the back side of the system, we will set up windy weather leading to the possibility of lake-effect snowfall. great news across california. the drought-stricken state. we have improving statistics across the central and northern half. much-needed rain moving in with snow across the cascades and northern rockies. back to you. >>> good news for those people going skiing. let's get an early start on your money with cristina alesci. cristina, stocks

let's go to meteorologist derek van dam for an early start on your weather. >> john, we are waking upstart across the central plain states and tennessee river valley. wet weather with tricky travel conditions for nashville. enough cold air to the north to change this into snowfall. winter weather advisory from kansas to missouri. 1 to 3 inches of snowfall before it is all said and done. tracking a departing low pressure across the new england coast. maybe a flurry for new york, but 1 to 3 inches for maine. temperatures below average or minneapolis and chicago. cool day for new york city. mild across the southeast. including atlanta. we are monitoring two major storms for the weekend. a lot of people like to travel leading up to christmas. rain for the southeast and a wet start to the weekend for the west coast. once again with mountain snow. john. >> thanks, derek. >>> russian president vladimir putin just starting his marathon news conference. he is expected to take questions. he will no doubt face questions about the economic crisis. the russian economy has been plunging in part bec

let's get to meteorologist derek van dam for an early look at weather.l a powerful story. will they get relief? >> christine, so do these numbers. in the bit of interesting information, in 2013, the entire year, san francisco only reached over 3.5 inches. since thursday, we're just shy of that in san francisco. just a bit too much too quickly. that is why we have seen the flooding. the latest radar. slowly starting to subside in the san francisco bay region. the national weather service has dropped the flood watches across the area. now we're focusing attention toward los angeles. we know what happens when it rains for morning rush hour. not a good combination. we will look at trouble conditions for los angeles and san diego. look at the wind gusts reported on thursday. that's tropical-storm force winds. in higher elevations, hurricane-force winds. still high wind warnings for southern california and much of nevada and utah and new mexico. we're also looking across the rest of the country where we have sunshine across the southeast and cold weather near

now, derek van dam is here to tell us how this happened.erek, this is a pretty cool time lapse outside. >> yes, this actually occurred in the course of only 15 minutes, natalie. this is called a total cloud inversion. very cool stuff. this is of course a time lapse, 15 minutes sped up into one. to me it looks like a bubbling cauld cauldron, or even tide going in and out. what is happening here? well, let's talk about it. basically, usually what we would see in the atmosphere as you go up in altitude the temperature actually cools. well, what happened here is the cold air was trapped in the grand canyon with a warm layer just above it. and so we call this an inversion. that is where the temperature as you go up in height or altitude actually warms. that is not a natural occurring thing in the upper levels of the atmosphere. so it basically trapped the cloud cover within the grand canyon and created this almost ethereal look and feel to it. kind of spooky if you ask me. but really a beautiful sight, nonetheless. people are taking pictures lig

. >>> our friend derek van dam is with us to talk about california.got all that rain, but didn't do much for the drought. >> a small dent in their drought. it did fill up reservoirs, especially over northern and central california, where they actually raised major reservoir levels by 6 to 10%. >> that's pretty good. >> that's pretty good. and we'll take it, right? it's southern california we're still concerned about. still under exceptional drought conditions. how did we get here? that's the big question. it really was late 2013 into the first half of this year where we saw serious drought conditions start to build up. let's take a look at a map coming from drought monitoring center. you can see by the 17th of september in 2013, none of california was an exceptional drought. you have to look out for that burgundy color to flood the map. now, by the end of 2014, we saw upwards of 55% of the state under exceptional drought conditions. but with this recent deluge of rain that we've experienced, especially over the central and northern half of the state,

i want to get to meteorologist derek van dam for the early start on your forecast. >> christine, we areour major west coast storm. here it is on the satellite loop. impressive rainfall totals from san francisco. get a load of this. rain since thursday, more than what we received in all of 2013 for the san francisco bay area. nonetheless, impressive and going north into central california with 7 inches of rain. now we focus on los angeles. 2 to 4 inches of rain. you know what that means for the wet roads for the morning commute. not nice. you want to avoid that. we have the wind to contend with. high wind warning in effect for much of southern california extending across nevada and new mexico. take a look at this. some of the wind gusts reported on mountain tops exceeding hurricane strength. that is impressive for white mountain. on top of that, we had very, very chilly temperatures across the northeast. temperatures today in new york city, topping 36. back to you. >> 36. thanks, derek. >>> another cosby accuser steps forward. beverly johnson. iconic model from the '70s. she details an i

let's bring in derek van damme now. we just heard derek in that story, that two reasons for it last yeah, last-minute purchases by all of us from amazon, that waited till the last second. me too. and the weather. >> the weather. what a great intro. that news story kind of reminded me when i was a kid and i would tell my teacher that i wasn't able to turn in my homework because my dog ate it. oh, i wasn't able to get you your package because the weather influenced the delivery. >> you can never use that. because you're supposed to know the weather and anticipate it. >> how about we answer that question? will there be a delay in the packages across the united states? here's the answer. we are actually tracking a major storm for christmas eve. and christmas day. but i think the effects will be more on travel getting to and from family across the east coast in the u.s. more than the shipping industry for packages. here's the storm system we're talking about. not too impressive yet but i stopped it because i wanted to show yo

our derek van dam closely monitoring this for us from cnn's international weather center. for us. if you are just joining us we want to reset and tell you about the breaking news coming in to us here at cnn. an airasia flight en route from the indonesian city of surabaya to singapore is missing. an indonesian transport official tells cnn flight 8501 lost contact with air traffic controllers early sunday morning. to be precise, we are told it lost contact at 7:24 a.m. sunday morning local time. now, the pilot reportedly requested an unusual route before the plane lost contact. the airline says a crisis center has been set up and search and rescue operations are under way. there are reports as many as 162 people are on board that airbus 320. we want to put up a shot on our screen so you can see the aircraft, the type of aircraft that we're talking about. we have a picture of that airbus 320. that's the kind of plane we're talking about. an airbus 320. indonesian tv reports that most of those on board this flight were indonesians, are indonesians i should say with three korea

meteorologist derek van dam joins us with more on what really the future holds for the state of californiaportant economy. millions living there. what will they be facing in the days ahead? >> you said it, errol. in fact it is a severe drought one of the worst is over a millennia. there's been rainfall. we've been discussing the intense amount of rain we've received from several different waves of moisture coming off the pacific but it's still not enough. remember, it took us years to get into this severe drought and it's going to take us years of constant storms to bring us out of this drought so just because we've received rain doesn't mean that this is cured just yet. just to put it in perspective, 99.7% of california still under drought conditions. we need 11 trillion gallons of water to end this drought. satisfactory at least. this is equivalent to 17 million olympic sized pools, unbelievable, what we do have is rainfall in the forecast which is good news. only going to help and the other part of this story is also the snowpack which is also something we have to consider. especially a

let's go to derek van dam who's standing by at the cnn weather center with more on this. we keep coming back to this fact that the aircraft, the pilot asked to change routes because of weather. >> yeah. that really can be confirmed because there was very turbulent weather across that region at the last point of contact for air asia flight 8501. what we're looking at here is the flight radar 24 website. the moment where it lost contact is when you start to see that separated line. i want you to take note of the altitude that it was at the last point of contact, 32,000 feet. now there have been reports that the pilot asked to divert around some rough weather, ascend to 38,000 feet and try to avoid the thunder storms that were in the region at that time. however, tlb thuhere are thunde storms in that area that are clearly topping 52,000 feet in the atmosphere. so what we're talking about here is the possibility of ice particles impacting some of the instruments on the airplane. we remember back in june of 2009, air france flight 447, that devastating tragedy that took place,

let's go to derek van dam who's standing by with much more as weather comes into focus in this story and we hear that the pilot requested a deviation in the route because of weather. >> that's right. pilots are trained to fly around thunder storms. convective thunder storms which we typically get this time of year across the java sea. i now you heard richard quest talk about tush rbulence and hot does not take down airplanes. it is often associated with pilot error and how they handle the turbulence. well we've done some research across this area, during the time of last contact with the air asia flight and we found some pretty interesting statistics. i will show you in just one moment. this is the flight radar 24 path you can see are the solid blue line becomes dotted black lines that's where the plane's trajectory going north toward singapore before it actually lost contact. what's important to note is an image that we've pulled up thanks to one of the weather reducer reproducers here. there was clearly turbulence in the area. it's actually highlighted by this shading of red. it's

speaking of perfect storms, let's take you to our meteorologist, derek van dam.looking to see if there are any storms that could delay the packages. >> don't blame -- >> no, but ups has a meteorologist whose job it is to make sure that no matter the weather. >> i understand, but if that package didn't arrive at their home it's because they sent it too late. we're all guilty of that. >> oh, come on. >> i am tracking some storms that could perhaps impact package delivery time across europe. we'll start there first and then we'll get over to the u.s. talk about a big storm across the pacific northwest. this is a very repeat weather pattern across most of europe. but it's a rain maker for berlin. much of germany, even parts of france into the netherlands as well. there's a significant amount of wind attributed with this series of low pressures moving through, nothing too significant but enough to cause travel delays. here's what we're expecting through the day. amsterdam through copenhagen. now speaking of christmas weather, temperatures are going to be above that fr

derek van dam's watching that for us. derek?u're from seattle, you're used to this type of weather. it's the fact that it continues to come and there's more rain. >> well, anybody who's paying attention along the west coast, thank you for staying up with us. the west coast getting more inundated. frontal boundary starting to press in and that will bring much-needed relief from the northern and central parts of california. it doesn't appear that the rain will get us far south from los angeles or even san francisco for that matter. 12 to 24 inches of snowfall across the northern rockies and parts of the cascade mountains. those are rainfall totals along the west coast. some locations could receive between 4 and 6 inches. elsewhere across the united states, we have a clear day across the northeast. rain for the southeast and we are looking forward, well, to the potential of a white christmas across the great lakes. we have a storm system we are monitoring closely. it looks like it will be a rain event. this could definitely impact

derek van dam has all the details. what's the latest?> this storm is currently about 120 kilometers off the east coast of samarra island. this is the latest information. the storm has schloughed down significantly. only moving westerly at nine kilometers per hour. posing a major threat for flash flooding as it slowly keeps across the philippines in the days to come. outer rain bands already lashing many coastal regions of the philippines and samarra island is looking precarious at the moment. this is called the path of uncertainty. anyone lying underneath that shading of blue needs to be on high alert. this is a very dangerous storm. we're going to watch out for significant storm surge for egaspi. late sunday into monday the impacts of weakened typhoon but still significant for manila. this is the latest radar. this is samarra island. you can see some of the intense rain bands. tacloban city is located here. i want to point out there's what we call a radar dead zone between two different radars across this region. nonetheless, we've got

derek van dam, keep us posted. >>> as those in the philippines brace for typhoon hagupit, we invite youto share your story. log in to cnn.com and upload your photos. but please remember to stay safe and do not put yourself in danger. >>> we want to shift gears. thousands marched through major u.s. cities chanting and blocking traffic in new york, miami, chicago and washington, calling for an end to widespread police brutality. in new york, protesters are demanding that all the officers involved in the choking incident be fired. demonstrators laid down in the streets to call attention to their cause. and here is how things looked in miami where crowds shut down a major interstate highway. protesters also marched in boston, dallas, cleveland, and other cities. >>> many of the demonstrators have said the problems highlighted by the eric garner case are nothing new and go back decades. >> reporter: the eric garner cell phone video is perhaps the most high profile caught on tape moment involving police since the rodney king case back in 1991 in los angeles. the two cases share some striking

. >> want to go now to our resident weather expert, derek van dam.e're talking about wind of 89 miles an hour. and two people are dead. >> this is an area that received a lot of fires in the past year because of the ongoing drought in that region. but now with the the excessive hateful we see that combining with mud for the possibility of mud slides. highway 101, the famed highway 101, if you've traveled along the west coast of the united states, you' probably driven this exact highway. closed in both directions north and south on thursday. impressive hateful totals. we've had extreme drought across northern california. ? fran in 2013, just receiving over eight centimeters of hateful in the entire year. with this storm moving through now, we've already received seven. central california has actually received the most amount of rain. and winds speeds impressive as well. tropling trees. two confirmed deaths as you heard zain report on just a minute ago. it is still raining very steadily in san francisco. so flooding is still a concern for that area. bu

derek van dam joins us from the world weather center. you have been saying, as bad as it is, it's not over yet. >> it is in the middle of their rainy season. it's not only malaysia, it's southern thailand. take a look at this new video coming to us at cnn. dramatic video of people trying to cross a river in southern portions of thailand. malaysia and thailand border each other. people trying to get on with their day-to-day lives. it is so difficult to do that with floodwaters rising and encroaching on the local businesses in that area. remember, the force of six inches, that's equal to 15 centimeters can swipe or sweep away an individual off their feet. so, impressive stuff coming out of that region. the reason why we are experiencing that wet weather in malays malaysia, the northeast monsoon. it sets up thanks to a high pressure that builds across china and eastern europe. that produces a northeast easterly wind off the south china sea. there's the moisture source. it carries it into the mountainous terrain of indonesia. it creates the

. >>> quite some amazing nature stories leading into our nature guy, derek van dam. >> not only the trench so deep where they found the fish light doesn't exist. >> somehow they had light on the water creatures, whatever they were. >> fascinating to see that stuff, absolutely. we do have some fascinating weather to talk about in europe. very active weather pattern. a lot of people were wondering, hey, will i have that white christmas for santa to enjoy? well, this will help provide some answers for you, if you are living in the northern parts of the united kingdom. we have an active kingdom that brings a rain/snow mix through christmas eve that is wednesday of next week. we are going to continue to see the low pressure system move through the area. the majority of germany, denmark and northern france, even near london, it will be a rainmaker. just to the north, norway, you have plenty of snow. perhaps into scotland as well and into sweden. high pressure across the mediterranean. santa will enjoy temperate weather across the region. here is the forecast going forward. you can see the rainfa

derek van damme is in the international weather center.im riding his horse, i used to see him riding his horse. >> that is so cool to know the beetles and elvis used to hang out. can you imagine the conversations that went on there. >> yeah, the music, some jam sessions. all right. >> i'm hoping that the big bosses weren't watching with me do my elvis impression there. i'm going to suggest that some of our viewers in north and south america ditch the tv screen for a few minutes and head outside. there is a meteor shower taking place. this is only for a select audience. much of the world we are speaking to at cnn international, already in daylight. we're not going to see the meteor shower but in vancouver, san francisco, los angeles or mexico city or caracas, you have the possibility to peek in the easterly sky to see the meteor shower and this being a visual medium we have an opportunity to bring you the immediate orr shower in case you are in daylight already and haven't had an opportunity to see this spectacular display from mother natur

and derek van dam is here to talk about that super typhoon heading towards the philippines. but it is difficult to determine the track, right? >> yes, it is, regardless of where it makes landfall the entire country needs to be on alert. this is a major storm, very powerful. titled the strongest storm of 2014 and possibly could be the strongest storm ever recorded. it intensified greatly within the past six hours. preparations are under way in tacloban in the philippines, already you can see that people are lining up outside of gas stations, grocery stores, looking for whatever they can find. petrol, food, water, just to prepare themselves for the possibility of a landfall. now, we're not exactly sure on the exact path of this storm. but nonetheless, all areas need to be very well aware of what is to come. this is the latest on super typhoon hagupit. this is a category 5 on the simpson scale in the atlantic ocean. this is a strong, strong storm. winds at 285 kilometers. wind gusts higher up to 150. i want to note something. look at the eyewall of the storm. it appears it is d

let's go to meteorologist derek van dam for an early look at your weather. >> we are waking up to a wetour thursday morning across the central plain states and tennessee river valley. wet weather with tricky travel conditions for nashville. enough cold air to the north we are changing precipitation to snowfall. winter weather advisories from kansas to missouri. 1 to 3 inches of snowfall before it is all said and done. tracking a departing low pressure across the new england coast. maybe a flurry for new york. 1 to 3 inches is possible for maine. temperatures below average for minneapolis and chicago. cool day for new york city. mild across the southeast. including atlanta. we are monitoring two major storms for the weekend. of course, a lot of people like to travel leading up to christmas. heavy rain for the southeast. a wet start to the weekend for the west coast once again with mountain snow. john, back to you. >>> derek, thanks. turmoil for the 49ers. the rumors their coach is about to be fired and now they cut their star defensive lineman ray mcdonald. andy scholes has more in the b

derek van dam is here -- >> hopefully you and i can run out -- we're suggesting our viewers to leavelevision screen and head outside, yes, we have the meteor shower, actually peaking as we speak. of course you have to be in north and south america at the moment to enjoy this brilliant light show. in fact, enthusiastic people say this is some of the best meteor showers of the year. take your place right now. so if you get the opportunity park the chair on the front lawn and look east towards gemini. the easterly direction you can see here where we're expecting the most radiant display of the meteor shower. by the way, this is from an extinct comet that passes by the earth. with the unexpected rocky show to see the meteors flying through the sky. heres the best viewing places, clear conditions over the eastern half of the united states. we do have quite a bit of cloud cover across the colorado rockies. all the way north into the canadian rockies. i want to bring your attention to a storm system that is now starting to enter the west coast of the united states once again. remember we ha

derek van dam joins us from the international weather center. my goodness, this has been going on for some time. >> it has. it is the rainey season across that part of the world. this amount of rainfall so quickly left scenes like this. the five most northern states in malaysia, the situation is very grim at the moment. 100,000 people being evacuated from their homes and businesses with scenes like this playing all over the northern parts of malaysia at the moment. 100,000 evacuees sets it over record set back in 2008 when flooding occurred across that region in terms of the number of people being evacuated from their homes. you can see on the forecast going forward, a very active weather pattern across the region. rainfall you have totals across indonesia from today through the next 48 hours will total between 25 and 100 millimeters of rainfall. you add this additional rainfall on an already saturated environment, you guessed it, that means the possibility of flooding continues. take a look at some of the footage coming out of the region. extre

derek van dam joining us now. this is the rainey season but it just is unrelenting this year. >> that's correct. in fact, we've got new numbers coming out of that area. over 115,000 people now evacuated from their homes and businesses. hardest hit across the northeastern seconds of malaysia, leaving scenes like this. you can just see how communities have been inundated by this floodwater moving through the region. they've had record rainfall. in fact, receiving two times their monthly average in the period of eight days. so impressive stuff. and it has led to serious concern obviously displacing hundreds of thousand of people and causing quite a number of concerns. the weather pattern continues to be very active over the next 48 hours. you can clearly see the thunderstorm activity across indonesia into thailand as well as northern malaysia. this is the area we're very concerned with near the border of southern thailand and malays malaysia. we could see an additional 50 to 100 millimeters of rain. very saturated en

. >> we have derek van dam and meteorologist here at cnn. what happened over a year from now. 6,000 people lost their lives. it was wiped out. >> it made a direct landful. we're predicting the next storm to move just slightly north of tacloban which will spare it from the extreme parts of the storm. nonetheless, areas across the entire central philippines need to be on high alert. you can see some of the preparations that they're already putting in place, rosemary, hundreds of thousands of sandbags being utilized across tacloban and the east central portions of the philippines. information from the joint typhoon warning center. 230 kilometres per hour winds sustained at the moment. this has dropped just below super sty foon status. i'm not in the business of minimalizing or diminishing the threat on this storm. it's going to pack quite a punch for the central and eastern portions of the philippines. let's talk about that track, the path of the eye wall of this storm. different computer models and different meteorological agencies say slightl

derek van dam joins us. we could already see that rain coming down.ain for on you viewers what you're seeing from the mold. >> andrew should actually be experiencing stronger wind gusts over the next three hours. he'll want to be prepared for that. nonetheless, you can see tacloban right to the south here. the eye wall of this particular storm just about -- well, let's say roughly five hours from making laughing on samar island. that is in the eastern philippines. you can see legazpi just to the north. we'll talk about all these locations in just one moment. you can see the storm has weakened somewhat, and it's also picked up forward momentum which means that we have a slightly earlier landfall time, roughly around 9:00 p.m. local time across the eastern portions of this particular island. it has extended its signal three public warning signal including legazpi and all of samar. you see a signal, too, where our andrew stevens is located in taclob tacloban. this is the latest radar coming out of the region. we have one to the north, one to the south. t

. >> one man who knows it very well is our own meteorologist derek van dam who joins us from the weatherahead from the state of california. >> zain, i think you used the operative word some correctly because it's only been some rain and some relief for california. they've got a long way to go and put it into perspective and still need 11 trillion gallons of water just to end the drought in its current state. 99.7% of the state of california still under drought conditions. let's compare this to something you and i are familiar with. how about an olympic size pool. 11 trillion gallons of water is equivalent to 17 million olympic size pools full of water. can you imagine that coming out of the sky. we still have several, several storms to go before we actually become, well, relatively drought-free for the californian coast. well, fortunately we have a storm system to discuss. that is for the weekend. of course, it may impact your plans if you're still tuned in with us from anywhere from seattle to san francisco this weekend, but you definitely need the rainfall and also going to get that al

let's go back to our meteorologist derek van dam who's been giving us incredible information about whats airplane derek, was flying through at the time it disappeared. of course we don't know the cause of this crash, but we do know and we're dealing with what we do know-s that this pilot asked for a deviation from the flight. what was going on? >> that has been confirmed. everything is so speculative at this point, but there's no doubt in my mind, and meteorologists following this story very closely, that airplane encountered some significant thunderstorm activity as it took off from the surabaya area. this is the latest satellite imagery that was just around the time that the last contact was made with the airport traffic control. you can see some of the thunderstorm activity across the java sea that flared up within the hour of the last point of contact which is roughly about 7:24 local time. this would give rise to that turbulence was a major concern for this particular airport in the final few minutes of radio contact, but remember it's not turbulence that brings down an airport. ye

derek van dam is our meteorologist who has been taking us through this. he's got more on what these pilots were dealing with. and it's right there within that green circle you've been telling us about. >> if's not only the conditions just prior to the moment it lost contact, it's also about this potential search and recovery effort that is taking place for the aircraft flying around the region and the ships and the crafts that are navigating the very turbulent seas of the java sea at the moment. this is the latest satellite imagery, and it's been clear, and it's been widely known that airasia is reporting that the pilots asked to ascend to 38,000 feet to try and divert some of the weather that was ongoing across that region. and what we've done here is we've actually stopped the satellite image at the moment the plane lost contact with air traffic control. and you can see some very rough thunderstorm activity across the java sea. this deep shading of orange and red. you can see clearly on the map here within this green circle that's the area that we lost

derek van dam joins us from the weather center.y there will be more of these reunions. >> a man of few words there, just saying daddy. he must have been so ecstatic. i love those story, natalie. they just warm the heart. >> they do. a lot of our stories don't. >> and it's great to report on stuff that that. good stuff. i have to change gears because we have a slightly different topic to talk about. this time there is actually been reports of flooding across the border of thailand and malaysia. but there has been a significant amount of rain across that region. so much so that it has caused several thousands of people to evacuate across this border area. in fact, take a look at some of telephone visuals coming out of this region. it has been raining persistently for days on end, creating this scene. it looks like the children are playing in this water. but let's not forget, this is a really dangerous situation to be in. in fact a soldier was helping evacuate some of the flood victims. unfortunately was killed when his boat which was

. >>> derek van dam is looking for discoveries here on earth. it's the winter solstice. >> it is. >> and is it cold, is it warm? what's winter doing to us so far. >> depend s on where you are. did you know mars and earth have approximately the same land mass even though mars is a quarter of the size of earth? earth is covered by so much water, what they're searching for on mars by the way. we have officially the winter and summer solstice upon us. in fact, taking place today, eastern standard time, around 6:03 in the evening for the northern hemisphere, shortest day of the year in terms of daylight hours. in the southern hemisphere we get to enjoy the longest daylight hours of the year this time of the year. we're expecting upwards of 14 to even 15 hours of daylight for some elections. we'll switch gears and talk about the west coast of the united states where we have been monitoring a major storm. look at this constant stream of moisture across the pacific. it looks like a nozzle spraying water on the west coast. this is referred to as around a

and that's our meteorologist, derek van dam, with more on what was going on during this asian flight. and you've been talking about this all of the analysts back up what you say about this particular region of the world. the pilot i spoke with what about 20 minutes ago, saying of all the places he's flown, this is the trickiest for the thunderstorms that they see and the path that they take. >> yeah. natalie, put yourself in the pilot's shoes. for instance just take a moment and look at this particular map, and you'll see how challenging it must have been to navigate through this complex of thunderstorms. you can just see how widespread the thunderstorm activity is across the java sea at the time that we lost contact with the air flight airasia flight 3501 roughly 7:24 in the morning local time on sunday morning. significant amount of thunderstorm activity. they're used to at this time of year of course pilots train, before they get their pilot's license, to avoid thunderstorms at all costs. we want to keep our flights for you and for me as safe as possible and as turbulent free free

van dam now. he's tracking the storm's path and can give us the latest information. the radar behind you, derek, looks so ominous. but talk to us about why we don't know exactly where the storm is headed yet and why that's a really important question in these next few hours. >> well, errol, what meteorologists look for, even though this storm is about 700 kilometers in diameter, we find and look for the strongest winds around the center, or the eye wall of this hurricane, or the typhoon in this instance. you can see it reforming nearly perfectly over the past six hours. this is a specific indicator to meet rolts. this is a particularly strong typhoon. even though it's dropped just below the super typhoon status by about 10 kilometres per hour. it is still a formidable storm and still a very dangerous life threatening storm for the central and eastern philippines. this is the latest, 230 kilometres per hour sustained winds, higher wind gusts, this makes it, people, an equivalent to a strong category 4 atlantic hurricane. and it's. >> translator:ing on a weak category 5. now the path, the exact p