‘We are talking about a perfect storm’

>>> million americans tonight have reason to pray that just one of those little spaghetti strands on the hurricane model forecasting map somehow takes hurricane irene away from us and out to sea. because otherwise, if it doesn't, if it goes the way so many are fearing and plow dictionary i predicting, it could cause damage along the eastern seaboard including new york city that we haven't dealt with in decades. tonight our coverage is in place up and down the eastern seaboard and in a moment we'll get the most detailed possible analysis from our friends at the weather channel . we want to begin tonight with al roker on the north carolina coast. and, al, the most troubling thing we keep hearing from people like you and reading on the web is no one sees a good model to divert the track this thing is on right now.

>> reporter: no, that's right, brian. unfortunately, we're talking about a perfect storm . we're here in duck, north carolina . normally these beaches would be packed but mandatory evacuations have moved people off the beaches, both residents and tourists. the reason these evacuations have taken place because of hurricane irene , it's 575 miles south of cape hatteras . we still have hurricane warnings up for the bahamas, we also have tropical storm warnings , hurricane warnings and watches up and down the mid-atlantic into the northeast. and here's the path we see this thing taking right now, basically making its way now along the florida coastline, through this evening on into tomorrow morning , as a category three storm, it continues up the coast by friday afternoon, still is a three. it comes across the outer banks right around saturday in the afternoon with 110-mile-per-hour winds, continues to the north and this is the path we don't like, for new york city , long island, new england and connecticut. because the big cities are on the northeast quadrant of the storm as it makes its way up to new england , and that's usually the strongest part of the storm. we are looking right now for cape hatteras , tropical storm winds for tomorrow night, ocean city , maryland, same thing, late saturday to noon sunday. we continue to see the impact from philadelphia to new york city , tropical storm winds late saturday, the worst conditions saturday night into sunday evening and moving on up to boston. they'll be about 24 hours later from boston to portland. the worst conditions will be sunday afternoon. extreme weather conditions, you can expect from cape hatteras , all the way up to new england , coastal flooding, major beach erosion , damaging winds, torrential winds and we can't even rule out tornadoes when this thing comes up the coast. we'll continue to update you tomorrow morning on "wake up with al" on the weather channel .

>> al roker on the coast of north carolina starting us off. al, thanks.