Nightly News   |  August 22, 2012

Could hurricane head to Tampa?

Hurricane watches are active throughout the Caribbean, and the U.S. Navy has put forces at Guantanamo on alert. Weather Channel meteorologist Jim Cantore reports.

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>>> now the question we posed at the top of the broadcast. is it possible a hurricane could be headed to tampa, florida just as republicans are heading to tampa, florida for the convention. forecasting this is like forecasting the outcome of the general election . here what is we do know. there are hurricane watches throughout the caribbean. the u.s. navy has been forces on guantanamo on alert, forcing hundreds off that base in cuba and a lot of weary floridians, veterans as this are watching this very closely as is jim cantore at weather channel headquarters. good evening.

>> reporter: good evening. each night confidence grows for a storm coming to the caribbean and turn to southeast united states . of course, florida would be first in through here. the situation got complicated tonight because the initiation from the hurricane center from their advisory is we have multiple centers, multiple clusters of thunderstorms which could actually take over as the main center. you see the one i've drawn here are the ones they are using. what are we initializing here? that's going to have big impacts on what will eventually be the future track of this. again, a lot of confidence in the westward track. you mentioned the murk warnings, watches out for puerto rico , haiti. big impacts here in terms of flooding because this is such a large storm already, it will rain for dachlts then as we get into sunday night and monday, florida very, very much in that cone. unfortunately we're going to be seeing a different animal than what we see now. regardless of what we're starting with, brian, i think the confidence is high enough we'll eventually have a storm, one that could grow rather large impacting the united states next week.

>> jim, of course, we'll stay at this as both the storm and convention approach. jim cantore , weather channel headquarters.