I wrote this last night, then pulled it back down when the weather link I had looked at for the jet stream mentioned below was replaced with a different jet stream pattern. I just watched the weather and they are anticipating changing the track to a more north-easterly direction, which is what I had feared. I suspect we're going to see a continued notheasterly shift toward Louisiana. We're already going to get those east-side winds.
Here's what I wrote last night:
Right now, it looks like Rita is going to hit the Texas coast with a hellish slam, and I dread seeing what it's going to do to Galveston and Houston. I'm also worried about the west Louisiana coastline and places like Lake Charles, which will get the east side of the hurricane. As we've seen, re: Biloxi and Gulfport / Waveland area, being on that east side is deadly.
Not helping matters any is the shift I'm seeing in the jet stream. The front that was pushing the hurricane away from Louisiana and sort of forcing its movement toward Texas looks (to me, a total lay person) to be shifting and sucking air from the Gulf straight north. The hurricane should enter into that northernly flow by tomorrow, and I'm wary of that changing the direction to a more direct hit to the Louisiana coast. (Not that there's going to a single place that's good for it to land.) The national weather media aren't calling it like that, so maybe there's nothing to worry about. Then again, we're in construction, and I've spent 23 years looking at things like the jet stream and how fast the storms move so that I can predict when it's going to rain somewhere. I can usually watch the maps, call Carl and tell him just exactly how long he has before it rains on him. But I haven't ever really tried predicting a hurricane's path, other than to watch the newscasters. Let's hope they know a helluva lot more than I do.
Posted by toni at September 22, 2005 01:15 AM