00:00ECS will be the first hurricane of the Atlantic hurricane season.
00:05It will strengthen into a hurricane Wednesday night,
00:08turn toward the United States Thursday and Friday,
00:11intensifying further, and this could become a major hurricane.
00:16That's maximum staying winds of at least 111 miles per hour,
00:19and we're looking for landfall along the central Gulf Coast
00:23late Friday into Saturday night.
00:25Tonight, we're going to check all of the formation and strengthening factors.
00:30Warm water, limited wind shear, plenty of moisture.
00:33That's why ECS is going to be strengthening and could do so quickly in the next 24 hours.
00:39The upper low across Texas is the key to where ECS moves.
00:44The farther east that upper low is, the farther east the storm.
00:47The farther west, the farther west the storm will go.
00:50Given its current location, we think that ECS will be making that move
00:54toward the central Gulf Coast as a hurricane.
00:57Right now, we have Category 2.
00:59That's 96 to 110 miles per hour.
01:02We have that landfall Friday night.
01:05Here's our landfall area within the red,
01:08anywhere from Dauphin Island toward the Destin, Florida area
01:12as a hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 90 to 110 miles per hour.
