Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
After what has been a historic wait,<\/a> a tropical storm off the east coast of Mexico was forecast to ripen into the first Atlantic hurricane Thursday morning, and it may have some effects on the Philadelphia region. <\/p>\n Around here it may be just rain with a name, but Isaias (yes, you may have heard the name before) is forecast to generate profoundly heavy rains in Florida and along the Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n The National Hurricane Center<\/a> was projecting that before making landfall, Isaias would peak Friday night as a Category 2 hurricane, with top winds at 110 mph, just below \u201cmajor\u201d status.<\/p>\n After landfall, it would weaken and head toward the Ohio Valley, losing some of its tropical characteristics, forecasters said. <\/p>\n The remnants then will head our way, and among the computer models \u201cthere is strong agreement\u201d that Isaias\u2019 leftovers would \u201cbring some impacts to the region,\u201d the National Weather Service said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere could be some heavy rainfall,\u201d said Mike Lee, a meteorologist in the Mount Holly office. \u201cWe\u2019ll have to keep a close eye on it to see how things evolve the next couple of days.\u201d<\/p>\n By then the storm would have shed most or all of its tropical identity.<\/p>\n The federal Weather Prediction Center had the region under a \u201cmarginal\u201d risk for heavy rains.<\/p>\n On Wednesday evening, the storm still was about 500 miles south of the Gulf Coast, and thus it was awfully early to say what it would do in a place about 1,200 miles from the storm center.<\/p>\n If you were around here in August 2020, you probably well remember another Isaias, a tropical storm that resulted in widespread flooding and knocked out power<\/a> to 600,000 utility customers in the Philly region <\/p>\n That Isaias took a track up the East Coast<\/a> and through the region, spawning two tornadoes and generating close to 9 inches of rain in Harleysville, Montgomery County<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re wondering why we are getting an Isaias 2.0, the hurricane center recycles names every six years, except in the case of an especially destructive storm \u2014 think Katrina in 2005, or Ida in 2021. Those names are retired.<\/p>\n