THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 16, 1995 TAG: 9509160266
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Now comes Marilyn. And, maybe, Ismael.
Local emergency planners, who more often than not spend hurricane season waiting for nothing, were keeping tabs Friday on the fifth Atlantic storm this season with the potential to hit the mid-Atlantic coast.
Hurricane Marilyn, packing winds of 100 mph, was battering the U.S. and British Virgin Islands on Friday, dumping upwards of 10 inches of rain.
At 8 p.m., the eye of the storm was just north of St. Croix, where winds were clocked at 127 mph.
The storm, moving northwest near 12 mph, is expected to move back over open water today, where it could further intensify while steering northwest - toward the southeast United States.
Long-range forecasts - and computer models of this storm have been largely in agreement and fairly accurate - suggest the storm will stay at sea and eventually take a relatively safe path similar to that followed most recently by Hurricane Luis.
``We're seeing increasing indications as time goes by that Marilyn will continue moving northwest for 36 hours and then turn north,'' John Hope, senior meteorologist at The Weather Channel in Atlanta, said Friday.
After 36 hours - sometime Sunday, probably - the storm is expected to begin to turn as it reaches the edge of a low-pressure trough off the southeast coast. If that trough holds, it is expected to bump Marilyn north and then northeast, assuring that it ``stays well off the coast.''
Instead, it could be the remnants of a Pacific hurricane - you read that right, Pacific - that actually have some impact on Virginia and North Carolina, possibly bringing some much-needed rain by Sunday.
Ismael developed Tuesday west of Mexico in the Pacific and became a hurricane Thursday. It came ashore early Friday in Mexico and sped north and then, as it crossed the border into Texas, northeast.
Although downgraded to a depression by Friday afternoon, Ismael's associated rain bands quickly stretched west to east across the southland, extending from Texas to Tennessee.
By today the storm probably will lose most of its tropical characteristics. But as it moves east and draws on moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, it is expected to bring rain into from the storm is expected to reach into western parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Further enhancing the chance of rain over parched sections of Virginia, a series of cold fronts are forecast to head southeast from the Northeast. As they hit the tropical air to the south, the opportunity for rain increases.
And that pattern could reinforce the protective umbrella of low pressure of the Southeast coast that has helped insulate the region from several storms.
Since June 1, when this, the busiest hurricane season in 60 years, began, four storms have crossed between Bermuda and the Outer Banks: Barry, Chantal, Felix and Luis. Of those, only one - Felix - ever came close to the coast.
It's too soon to know which of those storms - if any - Marilyn will follow.
``There's a lot of concern of whether (Marilyn) will be a threat to the United States,'' Hope said. ``But it's too early to call . . .. we want people in the U.S. to stand by and watch this - anyone on the East Coast.'' ILLUSTRATION: TRACKER'S GUIDE
Graphic
STEVE STONE/Staff
[For a copy of the grahic, see microfilm for this date.]
Tropical cyclone data is from the National Hurricane Center and
includes latitude, longitude and maximum sustained winds.
Tropical Storm Marilyn
To hear updates from the National Hurricane Center, call INFOLINE
at 640-5555 and enter category 1237.
by CNB