Nightly News   |  August 22, 2011

Hurricane Irene growing; Carolinas on watch

Hurricane Irene is heading toward the Bahamas, and later this week could be targeting the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. Weather Channel meteorologist Bryan Norcross reports.

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>>> now we turn to a developing story in this country with millions of americans stretched along the east coast on summer vacation, we have a hurricane to tell you about tonight, hurricane irene . who's heading toward the bahamas and then later this week targeting the united states . late this afternoon, the international space station took some photos of irene as it moved off puerto rico . weather channel 's brian norcross is with us tonight. all those blue lines don't make the folks in the carolinas very happy.

>> not for the carolinas and not points north. it's an 80-mile-per-hour category 1 hurricane now but it's forecast to get much stronger and head toward the eastern u.s. take a look at the track map, we can show you where it is right now, just north of the dominican republic right now. it's forecast to move by and intensify up to a category 2 hurricane and then as you say, headed into the bahamas this, could be a very significant hurricane event, a catastrophic event potentially in the bahamas with a major hurricane through there, not ruling out the effects in florida, but it looks like a side effect , not a direct hit in florida. the carolinas are right in the path too soon to tell exactly where, and that's on saturday, the hurricane coming to shore on the southeast coast and then after that, into the northeast, we have to talk about the possibility of the most significant hurricane event in decades, the possibility, but the likelihood of some kind of significant event affecting people's lives by late in the weekend, and of course we'll watch it here all evening.

>> brian norcross, another ominous note tonight as we're watching weather closely, thanks for being with