Bruce's Blog

A bit of dark yet accurate humor can be found from the image below. It shows the predicted storm track of Hurricane Rita (currently Category 5) as of the time of this writing. Considering it already outranks Katrina among the top five strongest hurricanes recorded in the Gulf of Mexico the shape of the storm track in the image seems to take on an almost prophetic aspect... (as seen on Crooks and Liars)

I've seen quite a few meteorology blogs referring to this Hurricane as a "Perfect Storm". The storm and the very warm water currents the storm is drawing its powers from seem to be textbook examples of the development of the strongest of Hurricanes. There is speculation over some forecast models suggesting that the hurricane may actually stall for up to two days over central Texas. If such a thing were to occur it would mean two days of intense 100+ mph winds with 15 to 30 inches of rain. This is already looking to be worse than Katrina.

For those who care to track some of the immediate economic impacts this storm should check out The Oil Drum. The site focuses on the oil industry and currently has some discussions on what operations and pipelines would be affected by a hit in Texas.