NASA pronounced Hurricane Bonnie "pregnant" yesterday when a pilot who flew inside the hurricane reported seeing a second eye within the storm system. "I saw a large, domed cloud that looked like a mini-hurricane swirling out of the top of Bonnie," said the pilot, Mr Ken Broda, who has piloted a NASA ER-2 aircraft into the storm twice since it entered the Caribbean.
Bonnie hammered the North Carolina coast yesterday with winds in excess of 100 mph, torrential rains and heavy surf.
"We're calling Bonnie a pregnant hurricane," said Mr David Steitz, a spokesman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. "It's the first time someone has reported seeing that."
Mr Steitz said the mini-hurricane, born at 55,000 feet posed no additional threat.
President Clinton has declared a major disaster area in the flood-stricken Val Verde County, Texas, and ordered federal aid to augment state and local recovery efforts there.
The White House said Mr Clinton's order would make US funding available to those affected by Tropical Storm Charley. That storm began on August 22nd. Governor George Bush of Texas has ordered nearly 300 National Guard troops to aid in rescue and clean-up.
Meanwhile, a massive storm like Bonnie represents the Super Bowl and Academy Awards rolled into one for the Weather Channel - the cable network that uses the promotional slogan, "If Hell freezes over, you'll hear it here first."
The Atlanta-based operation has already charted a ratings spike in response to the storm, with viewing levels rising sharply on Saturday and Sunday. Based on figures from Nielsen Media Research, the channel averaged nearly 250,000 viewers each night last week, an increase of more than 50 per cent compared to the corresponding period a year ago.
Despite thousands of weather enthusiasts (known as "trackers") who tune in on a regular basis, viewing of the network inevitably peaks when the weather turns dangerous. The channel's audience record was established in 1996, when Hurricane Fran prompted more than 2 million homes across the US to watch during a 15-minute span.
While ratings data from this week remains unavailable, anecdotal evidence - as well as what the channel said was an unprecedented number of 44.1 million hits on its Internet Web site on Monday - suggests the audience is continuing to swell.
Not only does the Weather Channel experience increased viewing during major storms, but other media outlets come calling. CBS This Morning and ABC's Nightline have aligned with the channel as part of the latest weather alert - the latter planning to link up with one of the three highly sophisticated satellite truck crews the Weather Channel deployed along the North Carolina coastline.
Based in an 8,500-square-foot forecast centre opened last year, the Weather Channel staff includes more than 80 meteorologists. Introduced in 1982, the channel became profitable within a few years and is now available in nearly every home with cable (about 65 million households), reaching several million more via satellite dishes. It is owned by Landmark Communications, which also owns the Travel Channel and several newspapers.
Because of the demand for the most recent storm news, forecasts are updated constantly using data from the National Weather Service, more than 1,500 reporting sites and a state-of-the-art computer system. "You sort of have to recalculate everything every time you get new information," Mr Lyons said.