Batten down the hatches Fred! Check out
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(CNN) -- Hurricane Isabel could be one of the more powerful storms to hit the middle Atlantic coast in decades, according to forecasters, who said they may issue a hurricane watch for the region Tuesday.
"Interests from the Carolinas northward to southern New England . . . along the coast and inland . . . should closely monitor the progress of Isabel," the National Hurricance Center said.
A hurricane watch is issued for specific coastal areas that face a possible threat from a hurricane, generally within 36 hours.
Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the NHC, said Isabel "will be one of the strongest storms seen in the landfall area in the last several decades."
The approach of Isabel prompted Congress to consider leaving Washington early, spurred the U.S. military to move some of its ships and aircraft and had residents from North Carolina to Maryland closely monitoring the latest weather reports.
"If Isabel stays close to our forecast track and if it does make landfall as a major hurricane, it has the potential for large loss of life if we don’t take it seriously and prepare," Max Mayfield, director of the hurricance center, told CNN.
At 5 a.m. EDT, Isabel was about 660 miles (1,065 kilometers) south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The storm was moving northwest at 7 mph (11 km/h), a motion that was expected to continue over the next 24 hours.
The three-day forecast track shows Isabel’s center striking North Carolina’s Pamlico Sound -- about 45 miles north of Morehead City and 120 miles east of Raleigh -- at 2 p.m. EDT Thursday, then turning north, slightly inland of Chesapeake Bay.
Satellite imagery and reports from a hurricane hunter plane showed the storm had become less organized early Tuesday.
Isabel’s maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 115 mph (185 km/h), with higher gusts, making it a solid Category 3 storm. That was slightly weaker than the system had been over the weekend, but Mayfield warned that the storm was still "very dangerous."
Stay dry Fred and stock up on plywood |