meteorologist jeff berardelli is tracking the storm with more. jeff? he the latest news is the storm has strengthened, winds up to 50 miles an hour. it is a small storm but bears watching because it is moving west at 14, meaning it's heading towards the caribbean. it will pass over the lesser antilles on tuesday with winds 65, 70 miles an hour then past near both puerto rico, haiti and the dominican republic as we head towards wednesday and thursday. it will probably begin to weaken once it moves over the big mountains, however it is still something we need to watch closely. now our spaghetti model plots uncertainty. so everybody in the caribbean teds to watch this, once it gets over the bahamas the question is whether it threatens florida. it has a lot of hoops to jump through. showers, storms tomorrow, threat for severe weather kansas city and st. louis. >> strassmann: brazil's government is sending troops to battle massive wildfires at the amazon burns at a record rate, the environmental crisis in south america has garnered international attention a

that is a bold prediction. >> meteorologist jeff berardelli is with us. dorian is a stronger storm and it is forecast to continue to strengthen as it passes by puerto rico and heads towards the u.s. east coast. as you can see on the radar, this is clearly a more defined system. a lot of big thunderstorms near the center well to the east of puerto rico. so the worst is going to be over the u.s. and british virgin islands. that's a blowup of thunderstorms near the center, as you can see. right now it's almost a hurricane with winds of 70 miles per hour. it's moving to the northwest at 13 miles per hour. this is the official forecast track. the worse is today and tonight in eastern puerto rico and over the virgin islands. after that it emerges out over the very warm waters near the bahamas and those warm waters are 84 to 88 degrees or so. that will super charge the system and it's forecast to become a category 3 major hurricane before potentially making landfall sometime sunday night into monday along the east coast of florida from miami all the way up to aro

meteorologist jeff berardelli is tracking the storm and joins us with more. >> this is something we'llave to watch closely because it could become a hurricane, and it's headed for the caribbean. right now it's a fairly weak system. winds around 40 miles an hour. it's moving west fast at 14 miles an hour. could strengthen and impact the lesser antilles on tuesday and then head near or just to the south of puerto rico and haiti and the dominican republic by wednesday and thursday. maybe as a category 1 hurricane. the best chance of tropical storm force winds, 40-mile-an-hour winds or more probably just to the south of, let's say, puerto rico. but notice tropical storm advisories in effect for barbados, st. lucia and st. vincent. the band of heaviest winds stays just south of puerto rico but probably too early to tell. after that, we have to see if it starts to strengthen again once it gets over the bahamas and threatens florida. it's way too early to know for sure. >> jeff, tracking dorian, thanks. >>> brazil's government is sending troops to battle massive wildfires as the amazon burns

cbs news climate and weather contributor jeff berardelli is here. jeff, good morning.is the latest storm track at this hour? >> good morning, tony. good morning, everybody. yes, so the storm weakened a little overnight. it is still looking fairly impressive on the satellite presentation. the stats, winds 50 miles an hour down from 60 last night. moving to the west-northwest at 13 and basically right over the lesser antilles. right now the storm is in a protective cocoon. out here is a lot of dry air. you see it near puerto rico and also some wind shear as well. so the system has to battle that. that's why we think it is probably going to strengthen a little bit but not a lot before it reaches puerto rico. it is forecast to be a high end tropical storm, maybe a low end hurricane. either way, you need to prepare in puerto rico for a hurricane. you want to prepare for something worse than you actually expect. on the eastern side, the wet side, the windy side, that is where puerto rico is going to be. notice it could very well thread the needle and move between the two isl

meteorologist jeff berardelli has more on all of this. ast night and overnight. >> you know, some people breathing a little bit of a sigh of relief. florida thinking, okay, it's probably going to move offshore, her folks in north carolina are thinking, okay, boy, it could come our way. it's strengthened as of the k advisory. winds are now 104 miles an hour. they were 140 miles an hour. the water temperatures really only hold for a storm of 145 miles an hour. the most important graphic i'm going to show you takes it west toward freeport, stalls it for a while, battering it around the island with 140-mile-per-hour winds for 4 s for 24 to 36 ho. where it turns is critical. right now it takes the cone off-center by 40 or 50 miles, but any shift, slightly west, anybody in this cone could see landfall. so you're not out of the woods in central and northeast florida. right now the landfall, the middle of the cone, is in places around the thursday time frame. get ready along the southeast coast. it could be coming your way. wauld behow you how big

our cbs news climate and weather contributor jeff berardelli is tracking dorian. is the storm on track to hit florida and what could the impact be for puerto rico? >> it is possible toward the end of the period maybe next weekend it could threaten florida but in the near term the lesser antilles and, yes, puerto rico. that is a look of the storm. big blow up of thunderstorms near the center. the storm is longer than last night. winds are 60 miles an hour moving fairly quickly at 14. tomorrow it will impact the lesser antilles winds 65 miles an hour. the big day for puerto rico is wednesday, could become a cat-1 hurricane. puerto rico is in the cone. and also on the stronger side, the eastern side of the system. so even if the winds aren't very strong the rain could be very strong. we could see potentially some bad flooding there. then the question is how much survives as it heads toward the state of florida and into the bahamas as we head into next weekend? a lot of the computer models agree with this general track. it has a lot of hoops to jump through to get the