THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 6, 1996 TAG: 9610060043
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 50 lines
The season's 10th tropical depression hovered just southeast of the Texas-Mexico border Saturday, having hardly moved since it formed on Friday. But forecasters expect it to head northeast - toward Florida.
At 5 p.m., the National Hurricane Center in Miami officially placed the depression's center about 185 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas.
It was moving northeast near 7 mph, and that motion was expected to continue today. Maximum sustained winds were near 35 mph; some strengthening is possible.
By Tuesday, the Hurricane Center expects the storm to be several hundred miles southeast of New Orleans.
Forecasters were working with an unusually limited amount of information Saturday for a storm so close to the coast.
Normally, research aircraft would be criss-crossing the storm, carefully dissecting it and measuring its winds and strength. But a series of attempts to fly into the storm were thwarted Saturday by mechanical problems with the Air Force Reserve aircraft.
Forecasters instead relied on satellite images and data from coastal weather stations and buoys in the Gulf of Mexico.
``Although there is a well-defined, broad, cyclonic circulation on satellite images . . . there are indications of various smaller centers embedded within the much larger circulation,'' said Lixion Avila, a meteorologist at the Hurricane Center.
Of particular concern was one rather strong secondary center not far from Brownsville. It's possible the storm's overall circulation might shift to that center, Avila said, bringing the storm closer to the coast.
The Texas coast was already being inundated with heavy rains, gusty winds and high tides - although not directly from the storm.
Rather, the counterclockwise circulation of the storm was teaming with the clockwise motion of air around a high-pressure system over central Texas. Together, they were pushing tropical moisture ashore.
Rain was reported along the Texas coastal plains and extended into the Rio Grande Valley and the hill country. Some places received 9 inches of rain in 24 hours.
Avila said the depression is expected to intensify into a tropical storm, possibly overnight, and pick up speed as it moves northeast. If its sustained winds top 39 mph, it would become Tropical Storm Josephine. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
STEVE STONE/The Virginian-Pilot
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