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Originally Posted by analog
great, so now all the people who fled mississippi and louisiana and are being kept in temporary housing in texas are going to get hit by a second hurricane.
what i find really scary is the fact that it's 165mph max sustained winds NOW, it's category 5 NOW, but has about 2 days before landfall....during which time, it could get even stronger... and it also means what's left of coastal louisiana is going to be in the upper-right quadrant of it, so most of southern LA is totally fucked, again, and even worse than before (it wasn't in the upper-right last time, and the upper-right is the strongest part).
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It will not be as strong when it makes landfall. It is showing signs of beginning an eye-wall replacement cycle, where it becomes more vulnerable to outside influence. It has also passed through the warm eddy that strengthened katrina and rita. It is approaching 1-2 C cooler waters and will in all likelyhood be a cat 4 storm when it makes landfall.
The storm surge will still have cat5 characteristics though, as rita has a lot of time and strength to move so much water.
It is amazing to me that there are people that refuse to leave even after what they saw with katrina. I hear that they are running out of gas and the interstates are parking lots for hundreds of miles - plus the hot texas sun beats down early and all day. But I still don't understand trying to ride out the storm. a 30 ft storm surge will push water 50 miles inland and farther in some areas. There is a possibility galvaston will no longer exist after rita. The whole island (more like a sand bar) could be washed away.
The local response on the other hand has been head over heels better than LA's prep for Katrina.
Edit: As of 1pm ET rita is back to Cat4 w/ 150mph winds and is likely to weaken slightly more before landfall.