Saturday March 3 8:05 AM ET

Northeast on Alert for Possible Monster Storm

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - From the Mid-Atlantic to the Northeast corridor, meteorologists were watching for the formation of what could be the biggest snowstorm to hit the East Coast in decades, according to the National Weather Service.

Forecasters were keeping an eye on two powerful weather systems that, should they converge, could potentially produce a major snowstorm beginning on Sunday, said National Weather Service spokesman Curtis Carey.

``Meteorologists say it's unusual and it's not like anything they've seen in 50 years,'' Carey said in an interview Friday.

A low pressure system moving up from the Gulf of Mexico and ''a cold area'' coming down from Canada could combine in the Carolinas and create a severe snowstorm, Carey said.

``If these two systems do meet, you could see potentially a foot of snow from Washington, D.C., north to New York,'' Carey said.

``The real question right now is when those systems meet and where,'' he said. ``Meteorologists tonight are scratching their heads and watching this, all curious to see how it's going to come out,'' he added.

The behavior of a front moving across southeastern Canada is making current conditions particularly unusual. Ordinarily, fronts tend to move west-to-east, but this front is moving westward and is expected to eventually turn back east, said National Weather Service meteorologist Bruce Terry.

The directional pattern of the front in Canada, the bitter cold temperatures in Maine and the warm, moist unstable air from the Gulf coast are all variables that could mix to fuel a ferocious slow-moving storm, Terry said.

``Once the storm cranks up it's not going to move in a hurry. I can guarantee you there's going to be a lot of wind and cold temperatures,'' said Terry. But for now, the amount of snow that could be expected is ``up for grabs,'' he added.

Terry said coastal flood watches already had been issued for parts of Maryland and Virginia for Sunday because of the anticipated high winds.

Forecasters will have a clearer picture on Saturday of what track the storm will take, Carey said.

-- Swissrose (cellier3@mindspring.com), March 03, 2001