THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 17, 1995 TAG: 9508170526
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines
Felix is breaking all the rules.
``It's doing things it shouldn't do,'' said Dewey Walston, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service forecast office in Washington. ``The climatology tells us that a storm in that position should be heading off to the northeast.''
Emergency planners are no less happy with a storm that defies their efforts at every turn.
``The difficulty has been the unpredictable nature of this hurricane,'' a weary Mark Marchbank, Virginia Beach's emergency chief, said Wednesday night. ``We're dealing with a new scenario every six hours.''
Felix was sitting on the edge of the Gulf Stream early today. It was in 80-degree waters, poised to move west-northwest into much warmer water where it could regain some strength. But during the day, there was nothing to push it there, so it sat . . . and sat.
``It reached an area where there were no more steering currents'' in the atmosphere, Walston said, ``sort of a void where it didn't turn because there was nothing directly pushing or pulling it.''
But the void ``is small, really small.'' And Walston said enhanced satellite images show an ``impulse'' of air, in essence nature's version of a puff, approaching from the southeast. ``That is going to give Felix a bump like a bowling ball, and we expect it will start moving west-northwest.''
So why didn't all the high-tech computer technology at the Weather Service's disposal predict this stall? And, for that matter, why all the problems with forecasting Felix in general since it turned near Bermuda?
The short answer: history. Or, rather, the lack thereof.
An important part of hurricane forecasting involves analyzingwhat past storms have done in similar places under similar circumstances.
The database includes hundreds of storms going back to 1886. But of the 36 storms that have been within 60 miles of where Felix has been in recent days, ``only seven made landfall anywhere in the U.S.,'' Walston said.
Thus, even the computers are confused. ``It's proving to be very difficult to forecast this hurricane,'' Walston said.
Indeed, forecast tracks for Felix have been all over the map. The nature of the storm's threat has changed as often as its expected course.
``First the thing is a hurricane, then it's a nor'easter,'' Marchbank said. ``When you have to deal with a lot of different contingencies, it does confuse things a little bit.''
One of his counterparts agreed.
``It seems like each advisory we get changes our game plan,'' said Jim Talbot, Norfolk's hurricane expert. ``It is very frustrating to be edging in one direction and then have a new advisory come in and it's totally contrary to what you've been planning.''
Newport News officials experienced the worst result of that Wednesday: First they urged voluntary evacuations of low-lying areas; then they backed off and told people to wait. Contradictory messages like those scare emergency planners who know that their credibility rises and falls on whether the public feels protected or confused.
Gov. George F. Allen added his voice Wednesday, attempting to bolster local officials' efforts.
``We're not going to force anyone to leave their homes,'' he said in an interview on WVEC-TV. ``But we want everyone to understand how serious this is.''
Allen said all state resources, from state police to the National Guard, are at the ready to assist the region should the worst happen. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency has positioned resources in Virginia and North Carolina.
But individuals must make the decision to protect themselves.
``Do something smart and wise,'' Allen said. ``Get out of harm's way.''
And don't plan on enjoying the show, Walston said.
``This is serious stuff I hope people take seriously,'' said Walston, who was once stationed at the Weather Service's Norfolk office and knows first-hand how people sometimes respond to hurricanes here. ``This isn't something to go to the coast and watch.''
People should be ready to take swift action any time, but ``forecasting the timing of this is almost impossible,'' he said. ``There is a window for landfall from nightfall Thursday through nightfall Friday.''
And the exact course of the storm is all-important, especially if it approaches the Chesapeake Bay from the southeast as expected.
Felix has the potential to bring flooding approaching that of the 1962 Ash Wednesday storm, Talbot said. At the same time, ``even a slight change in course and Felix could have only a small effect on us.''
That's one reason Talbot has refrained from recommending that Norfolk officials declare an emergency. He prefers to hold such an announcement until necessary, knowing it could be an important catalyst to public response.
``I'm trying to be very careful not to overreact,'' Talbot said. ``But at the same time I don't want to underreact, either. This is a difficult one. It would be much simpler if we had a defined storm track. But we don't.''
Marchbank, of Virginia Beach, said the public response thus far has been good.
``(Hotel) occupancy at the Oceanfront is down to 30 percent, and we've gotten positive reports from Sandbridge that people are getting out,'' he said. Even congestion on area interstates is a measure ``that there is some compliance'' with requests that people leave, he said.
And while he knows people may grow weary of listening to ``get ready, it's coming'' messages, ``You can't trust the unpredictable nature of hurricanes,'' Marchbank said. ``We still stress to people that this is a dangerous storm.'' ILLUSTRATION: Map
KRT
FOLLOWING FELIX
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE FELIX by CNB