Tracking storm from Weather Service office

The control room is aglow with more than 30 computer screens playing the shifting patterns in shades of red, green and yellow, over the outline of the eastern United States. The star of each screen is a swirling giant named Irene.

As the season's first major hurricane barrels north at a quickening pace, the 30 staffers at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Upton are charged with tracking and predicting its progress to determine just how it will impact the lower tri-state region. Major decisions rest on their work, from closing down railway systems to deploying thousands of extra utility workers.

The already-24/7 center is preparing for a weekend of all-nighters as Irene nears and the latest forecast has it making land in central Long Island midday Sunday.

The Upton office provides weather information to local governments, utilities, media, airports and emergency management agencies from northern New Jersey to Westchester, including all of Long Island, New York City and parts of lower Connecticut. All are depending on its models and forecasts to make decisions on how they will respond.

There are no shouts or outbursts inside the unassuming office amid tall white pines on a distant eastern border of Brookhaven National Lab. The excitement of a big storm is tempered by the seriousness of the work.

"When you can separate yourselves from the risks, there's an almost giddy anticipation," said Tim Morrin, observation program leader. "It's very stressful, but that may not be apparent because we're locked into our jobs. You're talking about an event that could be a 100-year event."

At 1 p.m., Morrin and meteorologist David Stark begin making preparations to launch one of four daily weather balloons -- two more than normal to better track Irene. The beachball-size white balloons, inflated with helium and connected by a string to a small white box of satellite-linked weather monitors, will drift upward 100,000 feet, sending back real-time data on wind velocity and direction, humidity and temperature. They are most important at the height of hurricanes, if they can be safely launched, said Morrin, because weather planes can't be everywhere and aren't always in the air.

Steve J. Naglic, disaster preparedness and warning coordinator meteorologist at the National Weather Service, flew here this week from his home base of West Columbia, S.C. to help with forecasting and preparedness. He's worked storms larger and smaller, including Hurricane Floyd, and expressed concern about this one. "Saturday night and Sunday are going to be rough," he said, pointing to storm surge models for the region that forecast up to 8 feet water rise on Manhattan's southern tip.

Hurricanes like Irene, he said, will hit in three phases.

"First are the outer bands. That's where we have our tornado threats," he said. 'Then come heavy rains. There we have to look at flooding. Finally, as the eye gets closer, we have to look at storm surges."

Ross Dickman, meteorologist in charge, is on the phone with Connecticut officials at just before two o'clock, conveying the latest data on the storm's track and trends about the speed and size increasing. "As the storm gets into the northern latitudes it will get larger."

Ashley Sears, who moved here from the regional office in Milwaukee only a week ago, is charged with primary communications with the region's nine airports, from northern New Jersey to Westchester and parts of Connecticut. She arrived just in time for Tuesday's 5.8 magnitude earthquake. The hurricane has made her hit the ground running. "When you have weather like this coming through, you're constantly on the phone, and holding conference calls every couple of hours," she said.

Stark, a graduate student at Stony Brook University who is completing graduate work at Upton, said staff expected to spend nights here over the weekend. A small snack room is fully stocked with soda and chips, and the air bears the scent of a recently cooked microwave lunch. Staff here will get full use from it in coming days. He plans to sleep in a backroom here this weekend, to help track his first major hurricane. "This is what you go to school for," he said.