for us in the coming days. >>> well you know the rule by now, jim cantore, the weather channel, if he shows up where you live it is about to get really bad there. he is in singer island, in florida, jim, i've been amazed at what i have heard. >> reporter: and i think we'll be amazed. let's talk about it, we look at it on satellite, it doesn't really look like all that much. but while this is in its cocoon it will come out as a butterfly with a swath of winds 100 miles or up to 800 miles wide let's look at the path, probably downgraded to a tropical storm in the next 24 hours, but look for tropical storm watches or even hurricane watches by saturday as it is forecasted to become a hurricane once again. going all the way up through the seaboard up through here. this is uncharted territory for modern meteorology. but once again, for the second year in a row, others face the prospect of being in the dark the week before halloween. >> all right, jim cantore, safe travels, we'll stay with you and the weather channel all weekend long as we track the progress of this. for us, for now, that is

. >> weather channel meteorologist jim cantore with maria today. feel like it was bad thought it would be? >> maybe a little worse, actually. there's water four feet high in the streets and cars floating round. it was a movie set everywhere ou turned. > rosie o'donnell snapping his pic of her dock in hambles. maria shriver, hyannisport overed in water. w yorkers turning into eporters on the web. of this building heap of rubble. tourist attraion today, a disaster zone. beep]. >> one man in his car floating own 14th street. > need to get out and get in a car. > and a jet skier on a new york road turned into a river. "the new york times" with this ime lapapse video as the storm hit. he donald hunkered down in his rump fortress, tweeting in "everything's normal" pic today. > my office is open, the building is a rock and doesn't budge. > this is the moment much of manhattan was plunged into arkness. wild video of a transformer exploding. crews furiously working to get electricity back on. > power outages for millions f people, not only for a day r two b

water that in the last go-around, hurricane irene came up to and over the lip of the seawall there, jim cantore has staked out the ground there. jim, we have been following your progress and that of the water lev levels all day. reporter: well, brian, the storm surge, the water rise, the level is 6.6, 2.2 higher than irene. so we're waiting for the high tide to come up. for example, irene was about here. all right? and what we could see is another two and a half, three feet here, major implications, if the water gets into the lower streets of manhattan, and also the subway system. and con-ed has the power to shut it down, and the mayor has to coordinate with the mta, the cross bay, the veteran's memorial bridge, the george washington bridge, just to name a few. they're huge bridges with massive traffic. and of course that was the only way to get around. it was either by car or cab. they were going to keep the bayonne, the 70 miles an hour wind gusts were anticipated to come up this evening through the midnight hour. now, they could choose to open it tomorrow if the winds die down, which certain

let's start in new york with weather channel meteorologist jim cantore. jim, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, lester. more and more preparations under way. then by the time tomorrow night rolls around, we will start to feel the impacts in earnest across much of the northeast. let's talk about this and lay out the impacts of the storm. first of all, the satellite shows a hybrid transition you spoke of. you have a cloud canopy that stretches over the entire eastern seaboard with the storm's center currently about 730 mimes to the south of new york city. here's the track. this wild s-shape that has all of us as meteorologists shaking our heads. because never really seen this left hook. it will bring it 150 miles to the south of new york city early tuesday morning. then there is the impact. let's lay them out. we start with the storm surge. in irene at battery park which is where i am tonight, we had three to six feet. we're expecting four to eight feet with this storm here and down the jersey shore as well. that will be higher than what they dealt wit

weather channel's jim cantore has more on the weather. >> reporter: yes, 30 in a row here with 19 named storms, this one for 2012 could be the most memorable. let's talk about sandy as it moved across jamaica, leaving 500 in shelters, causing power outages, moving into the bahamas. causing erosion to the roads there then we start to watch the impact for the u.s., really ramping up as we go through the day on friday, we could certainly see hurricane gusts or close to it. on the east coast of florida big erosion problems there in some of the areas as we approach the high tide on monday. and then the models begin to take this towards the west a little bit. that has been a big, big shift today. so if a storm comes in today that could be big problems for new england, and the new jersey shore. if a storm system comes in a little bit further to new england, we could still have problems here. so for the second year in a row, we face a pre-halloween storm that could leave millions in the dark. >> not good news, jim cantore, up next, guess who is looking for help around the house. >>> in texas to

this thing's got the whole can of worms. >> jim cantore, thanks a lot. we see the picture behind you. and you know, the worst is going to happen farther to the north as he just pointed out. it's coming our way. >> but we will still see some very heavy rhiain and heavy win around here. by the time this storm system gets here, when it makes landfall, it will be a storm system that will start spreading out more and more, affecting more and more people. very broad from the coast all the way inland with that heavy rain, and then, of course, eventually the snow when the cold air comes in. the other thing is, this will be a long-lasting storm for us. that's why we're talking about the showers starting on sunday. and the storm system going into wednesday. so a halloween storm, swi probably why you see it online some of the print media calling this a frankenstorm. let's talk about the course of the track with sandy as we take a look outside. we've had, once again, a day with fog early in the morning. mixture of clouds and sun, really more clouds than sun again to

and that is where jim cantore is. >> reporter: and a good note, too, con-ed knew this was coming and shut down the power, just could be a major catastrophe in terms of electric. and i want to take you back, here we are, this is probably about 30 yards from the actual railing here at the sea wall. i'm going to walk back as far as i can. and you can see the water coming here in waves here. just like mike, we're going to try and light this as fast as we can, and show you. but this is as high as the park bench is here, the two and a half, three feet surge here, the highest for battery park in new york city. when can you remember this? being in manhattan, lower part of town, brooklyn, not seeing any lights, we have had many, many power surges here tonight, and we're talking about it looking like the fourth of july. the water continues to roll in. we understand now, we've just heard a report in the subways, the water is starting to enter the subways, and that is what we heard from irene, we know the surge is two feet higher than that so now the water is coming in the sub wways. we understa

we'll talk to the weather channel's jim cantore down in lower manhattan where there's a lot going on with the high storm surge expected to rise and a crane has toppled in midtown manhattan because of all this wind. this is "hardball," live coverage of hurricane sandy. back with more after this. >>> welcome back to "hardball." hurricane sandy will make landfall in a few hours and while millions along the east coast have yet to see the wors , this storm has to offer, residents are already getting a taste of sandy's wrath, if you will. 375,000 residents were ordered to evacuate from new york city in advance of hurricane sandy's rough winds and high water. the weather channel's jim cantore is with us tonight from battery park, that's in lower manhattan at the very bottom. jim, i see the rough seas out there. this doesn't make any sense to me historically. i grew up in a country, philadelphia, where you had a certain number of snows every winter which were normal. you had your hurricane season around august/september and it was down south. now what is this? we're not getting involved in t

jim cantore. back to you. >> multi-million dollar event potentially billions of dollars because it's going to impact such a big area, washington, d.c., and of course the i-95 corridor has the biggest population in the country. all affected by this storm. we want you to stay tuned with us. live web chat going on right now. if you have questions about sandy go to nbcwashington.com. veronica johnson and myself continuing to answer these questions through the 6:00 hour. >> thank you, doug. we hope you stay with storm team 4 for continuing coverage of hurricane sandy. we have complete coverage on news4 and nbcwashington.com. keep us with up on facebook and twitter as well. >>> to the presidential race now. a marathon day on the campaign trail. president obama has just voted in chicago. she was in tampa, florida, at 7:00 this morning. and still has miles to go before he sleeps. the president is set to leave chicago in about an hour for a campaign affair in cleveland. there's a new "washington post" abc

we begin our coverage with meteorologist jim cantore on singer island in florida, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian, this is a forerunner of what we're dealing with along the area, we have been using words like hybrid, a winter storm, let's lay it out. first of all, the cone, friday it looks like it will be closer to florida, we'll deal with waves, heavy rain, all up and down the beaches, expect erosion saturday, sunday moving north, notice still, an 80 miles an hour category one hurricane, monday, tuesday, the big day as the storm has a chance to come inland as a very powerful storm, where the wind field will spread out hundreds of miles, with big-time areas to be hit. let's paint the areas, scenario number one, the center of the storm, this represents iso bars, lines of constant pressure, more wind, the smaller circle, around ocean city is where the storm comes to shore, huge erosion to the jersey shore, possible flooding in new york city, lower manhattan in the battery, right where i was for irene, major power problems, flooding and surge, damage and power losses narraganset

i'm meteorologist jim cantore, back to you. >> a lot of coastal communities are preparing for severe weather tonight. but in rehoboth beach, delaware, it's calm. erica gonzalez is there talking to locals who don't seem worried about the storms heading their way. >> reporter: doreen, we want to tell you about an hour ago, emergency officials were taking things very calmly, so as not to get anybody agitated, they still want to make sure everybody remains calm. but things have definitely changed here. this system is directly headed toward delaware is what we understand from emergency officials. that's what they've recently told us. they're expecting 10-foot high surge and torrential rain that could measure as much as a foot deep in some places. joseph thomas just met with the surrounding officials minutes ago. the very latest from him, residents that live in low-lying areas and mobile homes here in rehoboth are asked to make preparations to move out of the area now. they are asking these people not to wait for emergency evacuations to be put into place. again, if you live in the rehobot

we want to begin with the weather channel's jim cantore on the tip of lower manhattan. >> reporter: where i'm standing in about 24 hours, there's a very good chance i'll be standing here in waist-high water, if i were still standing here and i won't be. here it is on satellite as you mentioned, just a huge cloud canopy, currently about 523 miles to the south of new york city, there's a very low pressure to this so to the wind field is 900 miles wide this. s-path that we have seen for the past several days, brings the center within 100 miles of the the city. four to eight inches possible, the jersey shore, the south shore of long island. then six to 11 feet, this is what prompted the evacuation orders from the mayor of new york city. new york harbor on the north shore of long island dealing with six to 11 feet. the national weather in new york says this will be the highest storm surge ever in new york city, that's what they are predicting at the national weather service so far. look at the rainfall, we're up from last night. locally a foot in new jersey. the biggest difference this year is

. >> if i show up to vote, and jim cantor is standing in my polling place. out of there. [ laughter ] >> jennifer: some people have suggested that the hurricane could be sort of an october surprise that nobody intended of course. but karl if the hurricane isn't the october surprise there was an eye-opening event yesterday. there was a group of 70 ceos of the country's biggest companies, all who signed on to a plan that called for an balanced approach to solve the deficit, and that balanced approach that all of these ceos signed on to included revenues. do you think their clout could actually move compromise even in the people who signed pledges never to raise revenue? >> no. >> jennifer: that's so depressing. >> call me a cynic. i'm just a realist. the truth is the patriotic millionaires these conservative economies, liberal economists you can look everything to find people to say you need an balanced approach thank colludes tax increases and cuts in spending, but fortunately you have a group of people in washington and mitt romney who have forsaken their oa

that's where jim cantore has been all day long. >> hey, doug, good evening. our conditions here are certainly improving in terms of the wind and rain, unfortunately the surf is still very, very high. it doesn't take much to have one of these waves just roll up the beach, push a little over the debris further than what we have seen. we are just past high tide now. but i will tell you, the resort we are staying at doesn't anticipate this kind of wave action. even though the storm is over two miles away, we are still getting huge waves. those waves will get bigger and impact larger areas. these are of historic proportions. almost hard it graps meet logically from what we saw five days ago to now what has been pretty much the story. the models have been sticking with this and sticking with it. as far as me, i'm heading up to new york city with the models kind of honing in on that area and certainly the potential to stop the city that never sleeps. that is something that i will be covering for the weather channel come tomorrow night. back to you. >> and new york c

right now, though, we go to jim cantore who's been in florida all day. >> reporter: good evening, from singer island florida where the storm center is about 200 miles away, but you can see the wind is blowing behind me. this is the lesson we want everyone to take from this, regardless of where this center is and where it comes ashore, there will be far-reaching effects, especially for the northeast as our confidence grows heading into late sunday and early next week. for florida, the closest approach will bl tomorrow, expecting more wind, stronger perhaps, maybe gusts up to 65 miles per hour, we got up to 40 today. also bands of heavy rain. miami specifically is only 4 inches from their all-time wettest year on record. we could certainly see enough rain through tomorrow to get us close to the record. things improve in florida saturday night and sunday as the northeast begins to plan for what some are saying we've never even seen before. a hurricane inside a nor'easter. back to you. >> utility companies are working hard to head off extended power failures, like the ones we had a few mon

jim cantore, he said this was the coldest hurricane he's ever covered in his entire life. it doesn't make sense. such a strange event. the storm sizewise was like the second biggest storm we've ever kept track of going up the coast including famous blizzards and hurricane. this storm was immense. the stronger the winds, the larger the wind field and the more water these storms throw on shore and that's why we have such problems. we haven't seen the worst of the pictures yet from the jersey shore. when chris christie said i think we'll be shocked when we see them tomorrow. there may be cases where the ocean met the bay. in other words, it just eroded right through the barrier islands and i think we're going to see some of that tomorrow. >> what will happen to terms tomorrow and this those snow areas. what can they expect from temperature tools? >> excellent point. usually you lose power and it's usually summertime and you don't worry. we'll have temperatures in the 50s and 60s during the day and at night, 40s and 50s. if you're trying to keep your family warm and you have n

jim cantore has the latest on the storm's path of destruction. er to you, jim. >> reporter: maria, we're about 250 miles from the center. and you can see the wave action behind me. florida knew they would deal with the fringe effects. that said at the time of high tide this wave action we have behind us run all the way up to these chairs here. i'm telling you, it was a matter of luck that they didn't wash out to sea. we'll see what happens at 7:00 when the next high tide rolls in. we've had bands of rain, some produced gusts as high as 50 or 60 miles per hour. the weather from south florida to north will start to improve tomorrow. we know that. this is what i'm afraid of. we're going to see a storm that will weaken in terms of tropical intensity, go down to cat one and maybe even 70 miles per hour and become a tropical storm. as that's going on, it's going to change its characteristics, it's going to go from just a tropical system to a nor'easter. the wind field will spread. it's about 400 miles wide. it could be as high as 800 miles. 800 miles be

we'll check in with jim cantore from lower manhattan where there have been evacuations and serious flooding expected. how are things looking down there, jim? >> reporter: well, you know, it's kind of interesting. as you look back at the hudson here, we've got water that is at 3.1 feet. that's our storm surge. during irene it was 4.4. we expect to double what we had in irene. that's the problem. that's what kicked in yesterday and that's why the mandatory evacuation order was kicked in. the storm is deep in low pressure, and we expect the wind field to push this water up through long island sound and just to give you an example. you can see what's going on here in terms of how high water is. it's below the sea wall, but it's probably going to be about a good third of the way up this pole. that brings it all the way back into the battery and probably into lower parts of manhattan as well. parts of wall street will probably flood, so we anticipate this water to be much higher. the only difference in it could be the fact that it's going to come up gradually as opposed to quick like with the sto

according to the weather channel's jim cantore, there's a wind field that is 900 miles wide. here is what air travel looks like along the eastern sea board this evening. that picture is going to change over the next 12 to 24 hours. close to 7,000 flights scheduled to take off this evening and tomorrow have been canceled as a result of this massive hurricane. joining us now is nbc news meteorologist, dylan drier. as this going down as the largest storm, explain why they shouldn't be fools when it's a cat 1 storm. >> that's the problem. a category 1 hurricane you don't worry about. the problem is the sheer size of this storm. this is not just a category 1 hurricane. it's almost a hybrid as it transforms from a hurricane into a nor'easter with the strong easty winds that storm surge moves on shore. it's the sheer size of the storm. we are not tracking the eye of the storm. no matter where it makes land fall from new jersey to delaware to maryland, we are looking at the potential for the tropical force storm winds to extend out several hundred miles. it will be windy and a long d

. >> the weather channel's jim cantore with her in new york city. >> will this storm live up to the hypeoing to fd out. this is a factor of the storm beingo big and pushing the wawater up into areas where it can't get out. we saw this with katrina. if the w water comes up as expected, we would be under water, our crew would be under water, the battery park area will be under water. >> donald trump phoning in to me he's staying put in the big apple. >> what -- where are you right now? >>>> i'm in trump tower in my office. >> shouldn't yoube gettiting out of there? >> only because i love new york. we are fully prepared. we know exactly what to do and how to do it. >> you're staying? >> i live or die with it. i built many great ghlings new york and i feel confidence in those buildings because i built them. >> sandy truly a history maker. the stock market's first weather-related shutdown in 27 years. ubway service canceled, grand central station transformed into a ghost town. knbc's chris coleman with mario at the grove. >> what makes this ststorm so dadangerous? >> it's storm within a storm

. >> and jim cantor has nothing but that.got that these rescue crews are supposed to come to atlantic city to help those people get out. but chris christie is never one to mentor. he says when he is happy and when he is not. it doesn't seem like mitt romney would be able to handle these things unless somebody tells him what to do. and now he is saying he didn't want to get rid of fema he just wanted to allocate more to the states. but this is what he does. >> right. >> now that he has gotten himself into a bind that he wanted to get rid of fema in the midst of a disaster -- >> how is this even close? >> the polls have yet to be taken, and not to get too political on it right now in the middle of a disaster but this has got to effect the race somehow -- >> you would think -- because obama is appearing presidential. he is not campaigning right now, he is standing at the podium in the west wing participating. >> but there is still a contingent who thinks he is using his kenyan voodoo power to cause this storm. >> yeah. >> of cou

jim cantore joins us live from battery park city. good morning, jim. >> how you guys doing?hrough -- don't let that plastic bag hit you. walk us through the effect of the surge as you can see it now and 14 feet, try to give people just a sense what have that means. >> reporter: well, last night, you know, basically the surge is the rise in the water associated with the storm. that's it. okay. it happens because of the wind and the low pressure. those are the two key ingredients, and we knew we were going to get a very, very high surge last night, and we actually happened to set a record here at the battery. it's never been this high here and at sandy hook and ocean street as well. excuse me, guys. can you see where the debris came up and the water came over the battery sea wall. you can see where the debris line got. this is not surprising to us, especially knowing what we know about storm surge. i was here during irene. did not get that high at all. pretty much stayed here hon the lower part of grass. this time it's obviously gone much further and hence the records, hence t

dominated the first presidential debate tonight's vice presidential debate, hosted eed by becky qu and jim cantore tv. roger altman joins us now, good morning. >> hi, andrew. >> thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> what do you expect? what is biden and ryan going to do what would you tell them to do? >> first of all i think it will be an interesting debate and by past standards of vice presidential debates perhaps as john harwood was saying earlier an important one. it's an interesting contrast, vice president biden as we know is very experienced, i think he's very good at this type of thing and i think he's avuncular and much older than paul ryan, who is -- >> should he go for the jugular? >> i think he will be very aggressive. he'll be aggressive because i think that's his style. he'll be aggressive because he'll want to counter a sense that president obama was passive in the first presidential debate, and i just think he'll go for it as john harwood said, from the first moment. >> is kentucky far enough south for him to use that accent, the southern accent that he uses, do you know? kentu

we have jim cantor e, he's hole up at the ritz bar down at battery park.. >> mike seidel in hell's kitchen. >> exactly. >> let's get right to the weather. the beginning of sandy's effects are arriving up and down the mid-atlantic. winds are expected to reach 90 miles an hour, and already those living near the water have been forced evacuate. today it's expected to hook west and take aim at the northeast coast, leaving tens of millions of people just hours now to prepare. the entire new york city transit system is shut down. schools are closed along with those in baltimore, boston and washington, d.c. meteorologist bill karins is here with the very latest on the hurricane. bill. >> good morning to you, mika. and this storm is on schedule. nothing has changed. if anything, it's a little stronger than what we thought it would be at this point. and it's going to be moving on shore within the next 12 to 18 hours. this will be a 24-hour period for areas from the northern mid-atlantic, washington, d.c., all the way through boston that a lot of us will never forge

jim, how do you reconcile the fact -- goldman sachs is one of the lowest targets on the street for the end of the year. it's at 1250. you're obviously sounding much more bullish than that. larry cantors was on the other day. he's bullish yet their strategist has a fairly low target on the street. what i'm getting are two different views. sort of the top of the top view seems to be more bullish in some cases than the actual strategists have a view on where the market is going to go. what do you make of that? >> in my case, you have to consider -- i finished my two-year anniversary. i think what you're referring to is the views of the resurge guys. of course, i used to be in charge of, and there are views from the sell side perspective. in many ways, we're clients of theirs, and we're just one of many people we get input from. that's not our views. i personally thought s&p somewhere between 1500 to 1550 at the start of the year to year end, and i have no reason to change that. i know what the strategy guys are worrying about. they're worrying about the fiscal cliff as many of the people are. maybe that will become a big issue. everybody's been talking about it for quite a long time. i

cantor. congressman chris van hollen who played the role of vice president biden in his mock debates, senior adviser to the romney campaign, ed gillespie and tom brokaw. >>> up next, jim vandehei in the "politico playbook." first here's bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> active weather greets us on this friday. there's a few important points for your weekend plans. heading out the door this morning, light rain and cold air heading up into new england this morning. we've got thunderstorms in tennessee, heavy rain in southern missouri, and numerous showers from arizona to utah. and a new system coming into the northwest. so we've had a very inactive october, and now all of a sudden things are getting a little more active. it's going to be a very cold day in new england. be prepared tonight a hard freeze through all of new england. the growing season will end. tomorrow morning will be in the 20s in many areas. keep that in mind. today a lot of the major airports are just fine. tomorrow is the day of danger. we're going to have a very strong storm system in the middle of the country, almost like a springlike scenario with numerous severe lines of thunderstorms.

stand the hypocrisy when you talk about eric cantor and john boehner when you've just had a fundraiser in chicago with nancy pelosi. you just had congressman jimjkowski -- who are you rolled into? >> moderator: we are calling time. our next question is by her professor. >> moderator: given our involvement in a number of military situation throughout the world, what, if anything, would you change about our military policies? gill: i indicated that we should be out of afghanistan already. mission accomplished there. osama bin laden is dead. the situation got muddy and i think other than not, we should recognize that syria is a far more complex tuition when you were reading about in mainstream newspapers. it is evolving into a holy war of sorts. i would tread very carefully and engage in all diplomatic efforts possible. but we have had far too much war in this country for the last decade plus. i don't think that syria or libya, for that matter, i don't think it is a situation that calls for putting the lives of young american men and women in mind. i would support the severe sanctions are taking place in iran and i would encourage ongoing trepida