Everyone definitely needs to pay attention. All of the global models have shifted decidedly north. Three of them have the storm making a b-line for Galveston. One has it hitting the south central Texas coast and the other has it going into western Louisiana. It is MUCH harder to forecast changes in strength, but most of the models have it reaching 100 knots by 72 hours which is 115mph and coming on land at or above that intensity early Saturday morning. If you are near the coast, I would recommend contemplating what you need to do now. We do NOT want to be sitting here with a cat 5 storm sitting 200 miles off the coast and completely un-prepared.
Today's edition of the clutchfans bbs is brought to you by the letter "H". That high pressure system over Mississippi is what would keep Rita on a more Southerly track, if it stays there for a while. If it doesn't, God only knows... Remember, H is our friend...
http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/ I just keep thinking how unreal it would be if we did so much to support evacuees from NOLA and the rest of the Gulf coast and we get our own storm. Sheesh.
How often are the computer models updated? Man, I had no idea weather was so exciting until recently...
I noticed someone saying in the other thread that is closed that Rita was currently forecast to hit Corpus with Houston on the "dirty" side of the storm. A few notes... First, hurricanes are generally fairly small. Katrina was an exception to that rule with hurricane force winds going out nearly 150 miles in all directions from the center. That is rare. Most hurricanes have hurricane force winds extending out about 50-70 miles from the center. So, for a hurricane to have a significant impact on Houston/Galveston, it would need to hit fairly close. Corpus would not count. Second, forecast models are very accurate within 2-3 days, but they can change wildly. For example, check the Forecast Verification they have on Wunderground.com. It shows the ACTUAL track of the hurricane against the forecast models at that time. Here's the one for Katrina: http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/at200512.asp?imgfeature=verification&textfeature=track As a result, a lot of factors will go into the landfall area. Lastly, the one thing that is still VERY difficult to predict with hurricanes is intensity forecast. They still just don't know how strong storms will become in 3 or 4 days, which is why you have to watch every storm carefully.
Oh, one other note about projected paths. The one everyone uses is the National Hurricane Center. So, if you want the most accurate track, use theirs as the model. The Weather Channel just copies what NOAA has.
Keep in mind that the variance after 3 days is 500 - 700 miles. These are predictions, not accurate judgements. Remember that NOLA missed a direct hit from Katrina by something like 30 miles and that happened in the last hours before the storm when on shore. It is WAY too early to make predictions other than to say the Texas and Louisian coast are the most likely targets. Also, keep in mind that many of the storm tracks this year have been overly conservative in their forcasting of storm track. They either tend to overestimate the strength of high pressure or underestimate it. Early forecast tracks pointing directly at Houston are not necessarily a bad omen given this season's prediction rate. Nevertheless, it will be at least a couple of days before we have an accurate picture of where this thing will make landfall.
I think storm models are used more for future tracking data than for storm projections. I wouldn't trust any models that are five days out.
Ok, the model just changed. The thing looks like it's headed straight for us. I guess we'll have a better idea by midweek.
