Another One Headed For the Northern Gulf...

I've been watching Katrina closely today, and watching the banter on some meteorologist forums. I don't have the weather channel on right now so I don't know what they're saying. But these guys have found two of some kind of forecast model that would certainly drive this thing east again, back toward the FL/AL line.

They say there is still a good chance it could hit New Orleans, but they may have been feigning such confidence that it was going that way in an effort to get people to evacuate now... since it takes so long to evacuate NO, if people wait until they have a better idea it could be catastrophic.

I guess in reality something completely unpredictable could happen and drive it anywhere.

Are all you Gulf Coast residents watching???

Yah. Although we're 300 miles inland, if we get these things that are so big that they still dump a lot of precip by the time they get here, we flood . We're right next to a small creek (and I mean RIGHT next, like 25 feet!) and if we get too much at a time she'll break the banks. And it looks like we're going to be on the east side of this one. Bummer. Although on the other hand I don't wish it on NO either!!! They're below sea level to begin with!

You might be interested in talkweather.com if you haven't already found it. It's a local forum, which is why so many of the folks are from Alabama , although I'm not a huge weather buff (more than normal folks anyway, LOL, ) I hang out there occasionally to get a different perspective on hurricanes, tornadoes and such like. I've learned a lot just lurking.

Yup, that's the one of the two I've been watching today that's been more active.

Right now they're "bickering" over Stephanie (TWC) making a statement that the water where she is (Gulf Breeze I think) is normally like a pond. I admit I have seen it like that a lot, not too much surf to speak of, but somebody thinks she's totally off her rocker

My sister had a beach house on Perdido Key, in Orange Beach. After Ivan they now have half of one. And it's still sitting like that due to fighting with the insurance company. Maybe we could shear off just a teenie tiny part of katrina into a mini-hurricane to go eat what's left of that one house so they can get it rebuilt already!

No where near the Gulf myself, but we are expecting Katrina's effects next Tuesday-Wednesday. More rain and high winds. Which would be good, but we've had over 3 inches this past Thursday night- Friday afternoon.

Stay safe and dry.

K guys, they're already starting to see a possible shift moving it farther east. One is predicting Biloxi instead of NO.

Sooz, you guys seem to be getting it so far this year..
Was it Ivan that hit the GulfCoast/Panhandle last year? (sorry if I got the names confused)
My friend from Pennsylvania told me that they got some serious rain & flooding from that storm!

Yeah, Ivan... I have a few choice words for him after he destroyed the beach house where we were married. It was mid-september last year... so just barely under a year.

They're saying the mayor of NO announced mandatory evacuation starting tomorrow... only announced it now hoping people would go ahead and start to leave. In the meantime, while the people on that forum I've been watching say the National Hurricane Center begged NO to issue a mandatory evac this early, they're also predicting that it will fall farther East... a couple of them mentioned Mobile, where, unfortunately again for my sister, they have a restaurant.