The Weather Channel’s Stephanie Abrams is filing reports from Gulf Shores, AL in a not-entirely-unflattering gray t-shirt. Is she planning on having a wet t-shirt contest with herself when the Katrina’s rain bands roll in? :)

UPDATE: Thanks to Bill Woods, here’s a photo:

Che of The Shattered Prayer is “one of those thousands of New Orleanians with no place to go and no way to get there.” She writes:

Fear is very frustrating when its a helpless fear, when you know from the bottom of your sinking heart that there is absolutely nothing you can do. Except pray. Except maybe put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye. Fear is lonely when you see other people in their cars, heading out of town, packing up together, boarding up their houses together, going to the store to buy beer together. When your friends who live elsewhere just don’t understand why you’re so f***ing afraid. And fear is sorrowful when your best friend, your cat, isn’t very well-protected by the powers that be, when the shelters don’t allow pets. My most grievous fear is for my cat.

Earlier, on a lighter note, she wrote about the supplies she needed to buy: “bottled water, food that doesn’t have to be cooked, batteries… beer maybe? Its kind of a tradition in New Orleans to get drunk for a hurricane. God forbid anyone should be sober and alert during a life-threatening emergency.” Heh.

In all seriousness… pray for Che. Because she doesn’t want to leave her cat (whose name is Bea) and can’t take her to a shelter, she plans to “hunker down in my rickety little cottage and hope for the best. ‘The best’ being not getting covered in 20 feet of water.”

UPDATE: Good news! Che has found herself a ride out of town:

My neighbors have all decided to leave, and are kind enough to take me with them. We’re leaving first thing in the morning, several car-loads full. I’m relieved, but still frightened. I don’t know what will be waiting when I return. …

There is something that feels primal and instinctual about fleeing ahead of the storm. Since the earliest ages of pre-history people have looked out to sea and said, ‘Its comin’ up a bad cloud’ (as they say in middle Georgia), then started running in the other direction. No shame in it. Get me the hell out of here.

No shame at all. N.O. Pundit adds his two cents on that point: “By the by, it’s not wrong to leave when you don’t know whether things could go wrong and you can still get out. It is dreadfully wrong to wait until you are certain you must get out and you can’t.” Well said.

936 mb, and looking very impressive on satellite.

If it’s not a Category Four yet, it will be very soon.

P.S. Charles Fenwick writes:

While the traditional worst case refence for a hurricane is Camille, the potential path of Katrina makes me reach further back for such a reference, 105 years to be specific. I am referring, of course, to the Galveston storm of 1900. If Katrina bears on New Orleans, that is the sort of devestation we will see. While the death toll need not be high, inaction by individuals and the government could lead to that.

Pray for last minute shear, pray for an ever so slight delay in the sharpening of the turn to the north such that Katrina heads towards the less populated areas of the coast.

Various Lord of the Rings movie quotes come unbidden to my mind. Like, “there is always hope.” (Aragorn). Or, “courage is the best defense you have now.” (Gandalf). Alas, this is not a fantasy movie. The death and destruction, wherever it may occur (New Orleans would be the worst scenario by several orders of magnitude, but any landfall by this thing will be bad), will be very real.

Okay, so let me get this straight: the governor calls the mayor during dinner, and basically says “HEY, IDIOT, CALL THE F***IN’ HURRICANE CENTER!” It took a phone call from the governor to convince him to make this call?!? Well anyway, the mayor calls the NHC, and they basically tell him, “GET EVERYONE OUT OF YOUR CITY NOW!!!” So now, finally, the mayor is apparently planning to order first mandatory evacuation in city history tomorrow morning. About damn time. Story:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he may call for the first-ever mandatory evacuation in city history after talking with the head of the Hurricane Center who said a storm surge of 20-25 feet could be expected with major hurricane Katrina.

Nagin said he would consider ordering evacuations by Sunday morning and may employ buses and trains to help get people out of the city.

In an interview on Eyewitness News, Nagin said his Saturday night dinner was interrupted by an urgent call from Governor Kathleen Blanco who asked Nagin to call the Hurricane Center.

Nagin said the Hurricane Center Chief told the mayor that if it was possible at all, he should order an evacuation due to winds that could reach 145 miles per hour sustained and 170 mile per hour gusts.

Nagin said he would put his wife and family on a plane and he urged everyone to do anything they could to get out.

“All models say this storm will land right on top of New Orleans,” he said.

Nagin said he would call churches and urge them to have their congregations adopt seniors or someone who doesn’t have transportation and get them out.

“I don’t want to wake up one day and not have done all I could do with a catastrophe on top of us.”

Um, well, “all you could” might have included already having ordered a mandatory evacuation by now, instead of waiting until 24 hours before the hurricane hits. It also might have included calling the Hurricane Center on your own initiative!! Argh. I am not remotely impressed with Mayor Nagin at the moment.

Axodys has a good round-up of New Orleans bloggers’ posts. My favorite is this:

Dear Evacuation Monkeys:

This one is different. You officially have my permission to freak out.

Heh. Indeed.

Hurricane Katrina’s minimum central pressure is down to 939 mb — that’s the lowest it’s been yet, and it corresponds to Category 4 strength. But it may take the winds a few hours to “catch up” with the pressure, especially given Katrina’s newfound huge geographic size. Officially, the winds are still at low-end Category 3 strength, or 115 mph. I think that will change by the 4:00 AM advisory, and certainly by the 10:00 AM advisory I expect Katrina will be a Category 4 hurricane (131 mph+). I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she’s a high-end Category 4 or even a Category 5 by afternoon or evening. All the conditions for rapid intensification are there; now it’s just a matter of watching and waiting to see if it happens, or perhaps more precisely, how bad it is.

Meanwhile, most of the Hurricane Watches have been upgraded to Hurricane Warnings.

(The blue-and-pink zones on the far east and far west are Hurricane Watches and Tropical Storm Warnings; the red area is under a Hurricane Warning.)

Traffic isn’t terribly bad on the roads leading out of New Orleans right now, according to Jeff Morrow on The Weather Channel. Specifically, he says the road to Baton Rouge is pretty clear. So now is still a good time to evacuate. When the idiot mayor finally announces the mandatory evacuation order tomorrow morning, that will change.

The weatherbloggers are kicking into high gear. Dr. Jeff Masters has another excellent post:

We may be on the verge of a rapid deepening phase, since the shear and dry air on the northwest side of the hurricane appear to be lessening, and the hurricane is moving over a deep layer of warm water of almost 90F. The areal size of the hurricane continues to expand, and Katrina is growing from a medium sized hurricane to a large hurricane. Where the pressure will bottom out after this deepening phase is anyone’s guess, and I believe something in the 915 - 925 mb range is most likely [Hurricane Andrew was 922 mb at landfall; Camille was 909 mb. -ed.], which would make Katrina a strong Category 4 or weak Category 5 hurricane by tomorrow afternoon. The deepening phase may last longer than usual for a major hurricane, since Katrina is expanding in size and thus has more mass to spin up.

After this phase of rapid deepening, another eyewall replacement cycle will occur, and the timing of that cycle will be worth billions of dollars and perhaps many lives. There is no way to predict when this eyewall replacement cycle will occur. Another major factor will be the timing of the tides–if Katrina hits at high tide, there will be billions more in damage. There is still the possibility, too, that the trough that is now steering Katrina to the north will also create enough shear to reduce her to a Category 3 storm at landfall. This is what happened to Hurricane Ivan last year.

New Orleans finally got serious and ordered an evacuation, but far too late. [Actually, they didn’t even “order” it, they merely suggested it. -ed.] There is no way everyone will be able to get out of the city in time, and they may be forced to take shelter in the Superdome, which is above sea level. If Katrina makes a direct hit on New Orleans as a Category 4 hurricane, the levees protecting the city will be breached, and New Orleans, which is 6 - 10 feet below sea level, will fill with water. On top of this 6 feet of water will come a 15 foot storm surge, and on top of that will be 20 foot waves, so the potential for high loss of life is great. Given the current track and intensity forecast, I’d put the odds of this at about 20%.

On top of everything else, Hurricane Katrina could be economically devastating, costing the insurance industry countless billions and sending gas prices even higher than they already are. Let’s start with the latter issue. Steve Gregory writes:

Hurricane Katrina is heading for ‘Prime Oil Producing Real Estate’ in the north central Gulf. Unless the forecasts prove very wrong (as in landfall 250 miles to the east, or the storm is much weaker) — Oil prices will jump tremendously on Monday. Last year IVAN took out fully 6% of the entire U.S. annual production of oil and a fair amount of this year’s record high prices has to do with the ‘threat’ of another IVAN. On Friday, the ‘market thought’ Katrina would be a CAT 2 in the Florida Panhandle - and priced oil accordingly. If Katrina ’stays on course’, prices will jump $3-$5 per barrel Monday morning. Further increases to $75/bbl may follow Tuesday if there are reports of serious infrastructure damage on par with that done last year by IVAN - by far the most expensive hurricane to affect the U.S. oil producing industry.

As far as the potential for direct costs from hurricane damage, Dr. Jeff Masters says Katrina could be the “costliest hurricane ever” if she hits New Orleans as a Category 4 hurricane:

Insurers estimate that Katrina already did about $1 to $4 billion in damage (total damage is roughly double insured damage). This is a shocking number for a Category 1 hurricane, and bodes ill for the residents of New Orleans and the U.S. insurance industry if Katrina makes a direct hit on New Orleans as a Category 4 storm, which would likely cost $100 billion. But, New Orleans’ amazing run of luck could well continue at the expense of Mississippi or Alabama or Florida. Like Camille in 1969, Katrina may come ashore far enough east of New Orleans to largely spare it.

Only time, and eyewall replacement cycles, will tell.

Because no one else seems willing to say this, I’m going to keep screaming it until my face turns blue: Katrina could be another Camille. Metereology student Charles Fenwick of Eye of the Storm explains why:

If you were writing a book on hurricanes and wanted to get examples of the factors needed to create a category five hurricane, you would not have to search hard. For all exist right now. Low shear? Doesn’t get lower than this (parts of Katrina are in areas of sub-5 knot shear). High amounts of heat potential? Red freaking hot, right in the middle of Katrina’s path. A well-organized, already powerful hurricane? Here you go.

Can I guarantee a category five? No. Is Katrina going to try her damndest to make it? Yes. The only things limiting her are space, time and the sole weakness of a powerful hurricane: An unpredictable eyewall replacement cycle that temporarily reduces its strength.

One eyewall replacement cycle is ending. Now Katrina has probably a solid day of intensification ahead. I expect to see some amazing pressure drops overnight tonight and/or tomorrow. A well-timed second eyewall replacement cycle, occuring shortly before landfall (but not too long before, because then it will have time to restrengthen), now appears to be the only thing that can the Gulf coast from a calamity significantly worse than any of the recent hurricanes that have struck there. And there is no guarantee that such a lucky event will occur.

If you think you can ride out Katrina because you survived Ivan and Dennis, you’re wrong. You need leave, and you need to do it now, before it’s too late. As Fenwick writes:

If you are living on the coast or an otherwise low-lying area inside the danger cone portrayed in the National Hurricane Center forecast and you do not have plans to leave, then you are putting your life in grave danger. … There is still time to secure life and property, but it is quickly running out. For the residents of the northern gulf coast, now is the time to take decisive action to do both.

Steve Gregory also has an excellent post about eyewall replacement cycles and what’s going on with Katrina.

The barometric pressure is dropping again:

10:00 AM: 940 mb
1:00 PM: 949 mb (weakening because of eyewall replacement cycle)
4:00 PM: 945 mb
7:00 PM: 944 mb
Latest recon data: 941 mb

The wind speeds often take a number of hours to “catch up” with the pressure. Katrina never reached its full potential as a 940 mb hurricane prior to the eyewall replacement cycle (which, I think, is why the winds never dropped below 115 mph, even as the pressure rose). So now that the pressure is back down in the 940 mb range, I expect it won’t be long before the winds start ramping up.

Watching the Weather Channel… Jeff Morrow is in New Orleans. Stephanie Abrams is in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Jim Cantore is in Biloxi, Mississippi, trying to position himself to be in the heart of the right-front quadrant, or as he calls it, “home.” :)

Cantore seems to be the only person on the The Weather Channel who is willing to utter the dread words “Category Five.” Good for him. People along the coast need to realize exactly what they’re dealing with here. There is a substantial chance that this could be not just another Ivan, not just another Betsy, but another Camille. Will hearing that scare people? Yes, and that’s good! The important thing here is not to prevent panic. It’s to cause just enough panic to convince people to LEAVE.

I can’t emphasize enough what a bad decision I think it is for New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to delay the mandatory evacuation order until tomorrow morning. According to the Weather Channel, lots of tourists in the French Quarter are happy the evacuation is only “voluntary,” and are planning to stay in town until it becomes mandatory. Idiots. Those people may find themselves stuck on a highway with 180 mph wind gusts howling around them. (Of course, if that happens, they won’t actually be “stuck” for long. Nor will they be on the highway.)

Landfall is expected to occur around midday Monday. So by waiting until tomorrow morning, Mayor Nagin will be giving people scarcely 24 hours to get out. Perhaps he’s hoping to ease the evacuation traffic jams by starting things off with a trickle, but that’s awfully risky.

Will Ray Nagin go down in history as the mayor who fiddled while New Orleans drowned? Could be.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I had a headache earlier and needed to rest. That turned into a three-hour nap.

Luckily (or unluckily, for New Orleanians), not much changed while I was asleep. Katrina is still at 115 mph; she’s still in a concentric eyewall cycle, but seems to certain to strengthen once it’s over; and the forecast track still looks like a worst-case, potential doomsday scenario for New Orleans. Katrina’s sustained winds are still expected to reach 145 mph at landfall, with gusts to 180 mph, and it is still possibile that she’ll get even stronger than that, becoming just the fourth Category Five hurricane in recorded history to make landfall on the United States mainland.

Hurricane Watches, as expected, have been extended eastward to the Alabama/Florida border, but that doesn’t indicate an rightward lurch in the track; the NHC simply put the Louisiana warnings up a few hours early, to give New Orleans and vicinity more time to prepare. The track has actually edged ever-so-slightly to the left, but the below-sea-level city of New Orleans is still directly in the crosshairs.

For some reason that I can’t even begin to comprehend, the evacuation order for New Orleans is only “voluntary” at this time. The mayor says he might issue mandatory evacuations tomorrow morning, depending on what the forecast says. What is he waiting for??? The forecast calls for a DIRECT HIT! This is the story we’ve been fearing for decades! And if he waits until 24 hours before landfall to order people to leave, it may very well be too late! People getting stuck on the highways while a Category Five hurricane makes landfall is one of the most horrifying scenarios imaginable!!!

Dr. Jeff Masters puts the odds of a catastrophic “filling the bowl” scenario — i.e., the destruction of New Orleans — at approximately 10 percent.

So here’s the question you should be asking yourself, if you live in the Big Easy (or anywhere inside the “bowl”) and are hesitant to evacuate: If you knew there was a 10 percent chance terrorists were going to set off a nuclear bomb in your city on Monday, would you stick around, or would you evacuate? That’s essentially equivalent to what you’re dealing with here.

I sure as hell would leave.