(no subject)

For those of you who live in caves or totally ignore the news, there's an interesting development in the Gulf of Mexico (south of the United States, the part of the ocean tucked between Mexico and Florida). It's named Katrina and it's a category 5 hurricane at the moment. Hurricanes only go up to category 5, so this is a fairly impressive one. Last reports I saw were barometric pressure of 902 mb (lower is worse) and winds running around 165 mph (higher is worse). The available computer models and climate measurements show absolutely no reason for Katrina to weaken between now and when it hits land. There's low wind shear and warm water all the way to coast, both things that will sustain (if not strengthen) Katrina as she heads to the coast. In short, there's this big, huge storm in the Gulf of Mexico and it's heading towards the Louisiana/Mississippi coastline with approximately zero chance of running out of steam, falling apart, or even weakening slightly before it hits.

( Hurricanes: The natural disasters with real-time radar tracking and computer models! )