Hurricane Rita Prediction

I heard an Accuweather forecaster this afternoon on the Sean Hannity show give his best prediction for Hurricane Rita. This guy was right on the money with Katrina, so he's worth listening to. His prediction is that Rita will likely set new low pressure records for hurricanes in the Texas part of the Gulf of Mexico, and that the storm will make landfall between Matagorda Bay and Galveston Bay as a category 4 storm. That will put the center of circulation just west of Houston with the most damaging part of the storm hitting Galveston and Houston. It could get pretty ugly.

He also said it's likely that the storm could hit a category 5 at some point during its trip across the Gulf. He thinks it may be the strongest storm to hit Texas since Carla in 1961, and will certainly be stronger than Celia in 1970 for which I had a front-row seat. I have many good friends in Rockport, TX, so we'll pray the storm stays as far away from there as possible.

The good news for New Orleans is that he says there's a very small likelihood that the storm will hit anywhere near New Orleans, so those folks can breath a little easier for right now. Landfall is expected sometime Friday. We'll see how good he's called this one.

UPDATE: It's now a 5.