
DATE: Saturday, September 13, 1997          TAG: 9709130347

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  110 lines

IN THE PACIFIC, A STORM LIKE NO OTHER HURRICANE LINDA'S 185 MPH WINDS EQUAL EQUAL TO STRONGEST EVER IN ATLANTIC

Linda, the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the eastern Pacific, with sustained winds of 185 mph on Friday, could be en route to Southern California - posing a threat not seen there in more than half a century.

``We are recommending that all interests along the Southern California coast and the Baja California Peninsula monitor the progress of Linda,'' Lixion Avila, a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said Friday.

And while expectations are that the storm will weaken before any possible West Coast landfall, a visit from Linda or its remnants could be devastating. Even without high winds and surging tides, heavy rainfall could bring flash flooding and severe mudslides to Southern California.

And Linda could be a huge rainmaker.

Its cloud patterns cover an area larger than Mexico. And with winds gusting to well over 220 mph, it was as strong as the most powerful storms ever recorded in the Atlantic.

While hurricanes are a regular seasonal threat for the U.S. East Coast, earthquakes are the more common danger for those who live on the West Coast. Eastern Pacific weather patterns tend to move storms that form off the Mexican coast toward the west or northwest, away from North America.

``It's an extremely rare situation to find even a tropical storm in Southern California,'' said Rich Johnson, a meteorologist at The Weather Channel in Atlanta. ``The last time it happened was in 1939.'' That storm claimed 45 lives and caused $2 million in damage.

Linda's intensity and location is yet more graphic evidence that the globe is heading into a period of unusual and sometimes abnormally severe weather, owing to another record-setting phenomena: the strongest El Nino ever measured in the Pacific.

El Nino, the warming of Pacific waters off Peru, appears to affect a variety of conditions around the world.

During periods of strong El Nino, there tend to be fewer storms in the Atlantic, with greater hurricane activity in the Pacific. And the U.S. West Coast in particular often is battered by all types of storms.

Linda may be on the way. At 5 p.m., its center was about 300 miles south-southwest off the southern tip of Baja California, moving northwest near 9 mph.

Linda's eye passed directly over Socorro Island on Friday afternoon, but communications with an automated weather station there failed hours before it hit.

The largest of four islands in the Revillagigedos Archipelago, Socorro is about 280 miles south of Baja California. Largely untouched by man, the pristine Mexican islands are popular with divers, owing to abundant aquatic life and many underwater outcroppings and caves to be explored. The island is largely populated by sheep, and there was no word late Friday if anyone had been on the island.

It will take two or three days for the storm to reach the California coast, the Hurricane Center said. Thus emergency planners were taking a wait-and-see attitude. Meteorologists, however, were marveling at the monster on their maps.

``Nature is putting on quite a show,'' said Ed Rappaport, another Hurricane Center meteorologist.

By every measure - winds, barometric pressure, rate of growth and structure - Linda was an impressive sight in an unusual place.

``The cloud pattern is spectacular,'' Avila said. ``There is a well-defined eye surrounded by a ring of very deep convection.''

The storm formed on Tuesday afternoon with sustained winds of just 35 mph and reached hurricane strength late Wednesday. By normal measures, that's rapid growth. But Linda had something more in store, exploding in intensity on Thursday: 85 mph winds at 5 a.m., 115 mph at 11 a.m., 150 mph at 5 p.m., and 175 mph at 11 p.m. Sustained winds leveled off at 185 mph on Friday.

While its winds doubled in 24 hours, the barometric pressure plunged, from 980 millibars at 5 a.m. Thursday to 900 mb - 26.58 inches - at 5 a.m. Friday.

``This makes Linda, by far, the strongest eastern Pacific hurricane on record,'' Rappaport said. The previous record in the eastern Pacific was set just last month when Hurricane Guillermo posted top sustained winds of 160 mph.

``It also makes Linda one of the strongest hurricanes on record in the Western Hemisphere,'' Rappaport said.

Linda was a strong Category 5 hurricane on the five-tier Saffir-Simpson intensity scale. Such hurricanes are rare in history.

On Aug. 17, 1969, Hurricane Camille hit the Alabama coast with winds up to 200 mph. It eventually killed 256 people as it tore up the Gulf Coast and brought deadly flooding all the way to Virginia. Its lowest barometric pressure was 26.61 inches.

And the Labor Day storm of 1935 - coming before hurricanes were given names - hit the Florida Keys with winds of 200 mph, killing at least 408 people, possibly twice as many. Its lowest barometric pressure was 26.35 inches.

More recently, Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida on Aug. 24, 1992, killing 23 people and causing $25 billion in damage - the costliest hurricane ever. But its top winds were 145 mph.

Right now, the Atlantic is strangely calm at what is normally the peak of the hurricane season.

Friday, forecasters were tracking only one weakening system in the Atlantic: At 5 p.m., the center of Tropical Storm Erika was about 825 miles west of the westernmost Azores Islands, moving toward the east-northeast near 17 mph. That motion was expected to continue through today.

Erika's maximum sustained winds had dropped to near 60 mph from a peak of 125 mph earlier in the week. Little change in strength is expected today.

``It's still a pretty well-organized system, to be sure,'' Hope said. ``It could come pretty close to the Azores in a day or two.'' ILLUSTRATION: Map

STORM TRACK

NOAA/National Climatic Data Center

The storm's cloud pattern covers an area larger than Mexico.

TRACKER'S GUIDE

STEVE STONE

The Virginian-Pilot

[For a copy of the chart, see microfilm for this date.]