We've been bringing you an occasional look at this live feed from a Florida broadcaster from Jupiter, north of West Palm Beach.

The view here has got much worse in the past hour - the lighthouse in the distance is now barely visible through the stormy conditions. 

Just as he did to Georgia earlier, President Obama has signed a declaration of emergency for South Carolina, to the north.

This means teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and the Department of Homeland Security will coordinate assistance.

The hurricane is over Freeport in the western Bahamas right now - the extent of the winds can be seen in this video posted on the Instagram account of a restaurant there.

Police in the town of Boynton Beach, south of the expected epicentre of West Palm Beach, are doing a live Q&A on Facebook that you can watch here:

The police force earlier tweeted that they had not been too impressed with some of the calls they had received:

President Obama has phoned the governors of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida to discuss emergency preparations and the allocation of federal resources. 

He has already declared a state of emergency in Florida, allowing additional federal financial aid to flow into the state. 

"The President continues to receive regular updates on Hurricane Matthew and the coordinated efforts on response preparations with states and has directed his team to be as proactive as possible in preparing to respond to this storm," the White House said in a statement.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has deployed staff and resources to military bases in Georgia and North Carolina. They have "pre-positioned" 444,000 litres of drinking water, 513,000 meals, thousands of cots and blankets, and emergency response teams to the southern states.

The federal government has also created the website, ready.gov, external, to inform the public of how to properly prepare for a hurricane.

So says Jacksonville's sheriff:

• The National Hurricane Center reports that the storm is about 100 miles (160km) southeast of Florida's West Palm Beach.
• The eye of the storm will pass over or near Freeport, in the Bahamas, in the next hour.
• The maximum sustained winds are peaking at 140 mph (220kph).
• Florida governor Rick Scott is due to brief the public again in 30 minutes

Image source, Getty Images

Walt Disney World closed its theme parks at 17:00 local time (21:00 GMT) after a hurricane warning was issued for the Orlando area.

It is the fourth time in history that Disney has closed its parks. The parks will remain closed through Friday. 

Guests staying at some of Disney's resort hotels are also being relocated, according to Walt Disney World News Today, external.

Universal also announced on Twitter that parks will be closing at 17:00 ET while SeaWorld closed at 14:00 ET. 

Most theme parks are expected to resume normal hours on Saturday.

The US National Hurricane Center has just posted an update on the storm's position - it's south-east of the city of Freeport to the far west of the Bahamas, with gusts of 55mph.

It is still some 115 miles east of Palm Beach in Florida, around where it is likely to make landfall.

This video was posted in the past few minutes by a restaurant in Freeport:

Over the next few hours, we'll keep on bringing you this feed from Jupiter, just north of West Palm Beach, where the hurricane is expected to touch down.

Maybe it's not the most clever move to be standing near the sea as a hurricane approaches, Mr Ice. Especially when your local police force is telling you to do the complete opposite.

Florida is in the grips of a Zika virus crisis, that has largely been centred on areas of Miami. The virus can lead to birth defects, and is spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.

The Atlantic has taken a look at what the approach of Hurricane Matthew could mean for the spread of the virus.

"So in the first wave of wind, heavy rains, and storm surge - it could even have a beneficial effect in terms of washing away mosquito breeding sites,” Peter Hotez, a paediatrician and the dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College, told the magazine.

“But then as the waters recede, it could leave residual reservoirs of water in human-made containers that could breed Aedes aegypti.” 

BBC Mundo's Luis Fajardo is hosting a Facebook Live from an abandoned petrol station in Miami - join him here.

This video is being shared a lot by people in Florida today - produced by the Weather Channel in 2013, it shows the effects of storms between categories one and five on a house.

There seems to be some concern among those in the know that Matthew, as it passes over warm water while approaching Florida, could become a Category Five storm in the coming hours.

If Matthew hits as a Category Four storm, it will be among the 40 most powerful storms ever to hit the US since records began in the 1850s.

It would also be the first Category Four (out of five) to hit since Charley devastated parts of Florida in 2004.