Kenneth! A storm for you to track...maybe oil will hit 80?
DJ Tropical Storm Irene Picks Up Strength As It Aims For US
08/11/2005
Dow Jones News Services
(Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
MIAMI (AP)--Tropical Storm Irene became better organized and stronger Thursday as it moved closer to the U.S. East Coast, and weather experts forecast it could develop into a hurricane in days. Any landfall, however, would be days away.
"We're forecasting it to become a hurricane in a few days," said James Franklin, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Irene is expected to move toward the East Coast from Georgia to Virginia over the next five days, though it was still too soon to tell what kind of threat Irene posed to land, Franklin said.
"It certainly doesn't look like the main threat is Florida, but stranger things have happened.... It may well turn sharply enough (to the north) to not make landfall," he said.
Irene had top sustained winds near 40 mph, just above the 39 mph threshold for tropical storms. Hurricanes sustain winds of at least 74 mph.
At 11 a.m. EDT, Irene was about 515 miles south-southeast of Bermuda and moving west-northwest near 17 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Maximum sustained winds are near 50 mph, with higher gusts, and additional strengthening is forecast over the next 24 hours, the center said. Irene's tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 60 miles from the center, the report said.
Irene broke records Sunday as the earliest ninth named storm in the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1 and ends Nov. 30. Normally, only two named storms have formed by this time in the season.
It weakened to a depression Monday, but regained tropical storm strength Wednesday.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
08-11-05 1503ET
Copyright (c) 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. |
