Looking at the radar in Houston it looks like a bad ass storm is rolling through. The lightning has been quite a show.
Apparently this thing is sucking water from as far west as the Rockies! The weather in Houston is indeed related to the storm strengthening itself.
The storm that just rolled through Fort Bend appeared to be all bark and no bite, at least by my house. I was hoping for more rain.
Not exactly. I am on the way other side of town. I am in the northwest. This thing must have been huge.
Bad news... According to the Weather Channel, Katrina will be a Cat.4 storm with 145 mph winds very soon. Their latest satelite pictures are extremely ominous. It looks like one of the super typhoons that hit Japan several times a year.
Good lord, what did the Gulf Coast do to deserve this? It's been one damned hurricane after another. My parents got a brushing from that early bad hurricane (Dennis) and now they're under the gun with this one. Here in Tampa, we just got a lot of rain and a little wind. My kids and I walked the beach and we were just flat out amazed by the huge-ass waves. The sea was as angry as I've ever seen it. But it would be a disaster of biblical proportions if it hits NO. 100,000 folks could die, thousands of historic buildings could be destroyed and NO could be gone forever. I hear it would take months just to pump the city clean if Lake Ponchantrain is pushed over the levees and the "bowl fills." The rebuilding job would require billions of dollars. Guess my cousin and his family could always live with us in Tampa. The 'Slammer is back.....
I was in New Orleans on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday...and it's amazing that there was no talk of even a possible hurricane coming through town...
Winds now up to 160 MPH and 26.81 MB of pressure (which would be the second most intense hurrican ever recorded).
I was reading that the winds might even max out at 190mph. I sure as hell hope this doesn't happen. Right now the best case scenario would be for the hurricane to hit when its undergoing an eyewall replacement cycle. This coupled with the fact that hurricanes tend to get weaker just before they make landfall might make Katrina a category 3 hurricane.
MSNBC is reporting Katrina has reached Cat. 5 with 160 mph sustained winds.....still on track for NO.
Winds are now sustained at 175mph! Yikes. This is a ridiculousy dangerous hurricane. New Orleans mayor has called for a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. The first in its history.
Great find. That was fascinating. This is a very, very serious storm. If it does hit NOLA square on as predicted, your last visit there may have been your LAST visit there. If the water from Lake Ponchatrain (sp?) and the Mississippi come over those levees, it could take them months to pump out all the water. Imagine a lake with water 30 or 40 feet high covering the entire city for weeks. I hope everyone gets out.
Keep in mind that cat. 4 storms are rare and cat. 5 storms almost never make landfall. Only 3 have ever hit land in the US - Andrew, Camille and the storm of 1935. Category 4 storms are almost as rare. A monster storm like this is very unique. It is very difficult for a storm to maintain this level of size an intensity with changing conditions, so most cat. 5's dissipate at least to some degree before landfall. Even category 4 storms aren't usually this large and powerful. Houston did get a cat. 4 storm in 1963 - Carla. Alisha was a pretty strong cat. 3 - stronger actually than most expected. Keep in mind that Allison, though it wasn't a hurricane, was one of the most damaging storms to hit any section of the US coast EVER. It did as much damage as Hurricane Andrew, a cat. 5 storm that wiped out a town in Florida. We also had a brush with a cat 1 storm in 2000 that hit to the southeast of us. It isn't as if we don't have our share of tropical weather. We do and it has been devastating. We just haven't gotten a cat. 4 or 5 storm in a long time, but, for that matter, neither have lots of places throughout the Gulf coast.
