Rita is heading straight for Louisiana

It's going to hit just east of galveston. I trust the weather guys that do this for a living...

Now...if it suddenly changes course( which it might), some of you may be right...But as of now, the eye will hit just east of galveston...

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO:cry:

 

That is a certainly reasonable line of logic.

As for me, however, I'm adopting a little of my own common sense and mixing it with the forcast. I fully believe the forcasters when they say it's going to start turning to the north when the High Pressure system is out of the way, but what I'm seeing with my own eyes is the storm is currently not following the path the NHC said it was going to take. My belief is that it will follow their path, just shifted more and more east by the hour.

 

I thought the UKMET was run at 8 pm on 9/21. The BAMM was run at 8 am on 9/22/05. Am I reading it wrong?

 

You have it right. The UKMET was run at 8pm last night.

 

NOGAPS ran at 8pm last night. UKMET and BAMM were run at 8am this morning.

 

Rita's path so far.



Katrina's path




They say that hurricanes have a tendience to follow in the pathes of previous storms.

 

This is from NOAA at 11:am.

RITA APPEARS TO HAVE REACHED ITS PEAK INTENSITY DURING THE PAST
12 HOURS. HURRICANES TYPICALLY DO NOT MAINTAIN SUCH HIGH INTENSITY
FOR A LONG TIME. INITIAL INTENSITY ESTIMATE IS 145 KNOTS. ALTHOUGH
SOME FLUCTUATIONS IN INTENSITY ARE LIKELY DURING THE NEXT DAY OR
TWO...DUE TO EYEWALL REPLACEMENT CYCLES...AN OVERALL GRADUAL
WEAKENING TREND SHOULD TAKE PLACE. THIS WEAKENING TREND IS BASED ON
LOWER OCEANIC HEAT CONTENT ALONG THE FORECAST TRACK AND INCREASING
SHEAR. NEVERTHERELESS...RITA IS EXPECTED TO MAKE LANDFALL AS A
DANGEROUS HURRICANE OF AT LEAST A CATEGORY THREE INTENSITY.

RITA HAS BEEN MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST OR 295 DEGREES AT 8
KNOTS. A STRONG HIGH PRESSURE SYSTEM CURRENTLY CENTERED OVER
NORTHERN TEXAS/OKLAHOMA IS EXPECTED TO SHIFT EASTWARD ALLOWING RITA
TO TAKE A MORE NORTHWESTERLY AND NORTHERLY TRACK. THE EASTWARD
SHIFT OF THE HIGH IS FORECAST BY ALL GLOBAL MODELS...RESULTING IN
TRACK GUIDANCE CONSISTENTLY TURNING THE HURRICANE TOWARD THE
NORTHWEST AND NORTH TOWARD THE UPPER-TEXAS OR THE WESTERN LOUISIANA
COASTS. AFTER LANDFALL...STEERING CURRENTS ARE EXPECTED TO WEAKEN
AND THE CYCLONE COULD MEANDER FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS IN THE VICINITY
OF NORTHEASTERN TEXAS...PRODUCING HEAVY RAINS.

 

I expect for the projected track to shift east sometime shortly.....if you look at this loop and then click "TropForcPts" at the top right of the loop. You can see that the eye will be well east of the second point.

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/DATA/RT/float-ir4-loop.html

 

From that the eye looks like a lousiana landfall for sure.