THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 8, 1995 TAG: 9510080030
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
This time of year, things should have pretty much settled down in the tropics. But, as hurricane experts have said so many times, this is no normal year.
``As unbelievable as it sounds, we're still looking at weather going on'' in the tropical Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, said Rich Johnson, a meteorologist at The Weather Channel in Atlanta.
A tropical storm watch was posted Saturday for the Leeward Islands from Martinique through Guadeloupe in the Eastern Caribbean as Tropical Storm Pablo continued on a course that threatens to bring it through the islands Monday and to Puerto Rico on Tuesday.
Winds blowing out of the west were continuing to keep Pablo from intensifying Saturday, but forecasters fear those conditions may change. If they do so sooner rather than later, the islands could face yet another damaging hurricane.
Ed Rappaport, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said a low-pressure system is expected to form in the upper atmosphere north of Puerto Rico by this afternoon with a low-pressure ridge extending from it to the east.
``If this occurs, and Pablo survives in the interim, then the storm would move into an environment much more conducive for development,'' Rappaport said.
And while forecasters keep tabs on Pablo, yet another tropical system may be brewing.
The Hurricane Center was studying a large area of cloudiness and thunderstorms in the southwestern Caribbean Sea and extending over Central America. The unsettled weather was associated with a low pressure system centered just off the east coast of Honduras.
``Satellite pictures and surface data indicate that the system is slowly becoming better organized,'' said Lixion Avila of the Hurricane Center. ``It could become a tropical depression during the next day or two.''
If it does intensify and its sustained winds top 39 mph, it would become a tropical storm and be dubbed Roxanne.
Some may wonder why the jump from ``P'' to ``R'' in the naming of hurricanes, but no one forgot ``Q.'' It and four other letters of the alphabet are not included in the official list of storm names because of the difficulty in coming up with names for those letters.
This season marked the first time the letters N, O and P have been used in the Atlantic since 1950 when storms were first given names.
Opal lost its strength as it moved inland last week, steering north into New York and then into Canada. Its remnants are continuing to stir up trouble, however.
The system moved into the North Atlantic and headed toward Europe on Saturday. The storm even absorbed the remains of Tropical Storm Noel, which fell apart late Friday near the Azores, going from a hurricane with winds of 75 mph at 11 p.m. Thursday to a depression with winds of just 35 mph 24 hours later. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
STEVE STONE/Staff
TRACKER'S GUIDE
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB