Hovering over a specific <div>

Hovering over a specific <div>

Hi All,
I'm new to jquery, so please be patient.

I was wondering if someone could help me. I would like to know to to specifically target the action of a div that has the same name as other divs.

I have 3 div's in a container, each called 'item' (<div class="item">).
Each div has a <p> tag and a <span> tag inside.
I have hidden the <span> tag initially, but would like to display the <span> tag of the specific <div> that I over.
At the moment, If i hover over one div tag, it shows all spans tags for all divs.

Example:
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
   $('.alert').hide();
   
   $(".item").hover(
   function () {
    $(".alert").show('slow');
   },
   function () {
    $(".alert").hide('slow');
   }
   );
});
</script>
<style type="text/css">
#container{
   width: 600px;
   height: 300px;
}
.item{
   float: left;
   width:200px;
   height:300px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="container">
    <div class="item">
        <p>this is an item</p>
        <span class="alert">Here is a warning</span>
    </div>
    <div class="item">
        <p>this is an item</p>
        <span class="alert">Here is a warning</span>
    </div>
    <div class="item">
        <p>this is an item</p>
        <span class="alert">Here is a warning</span>
    </div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks