Good call Kevin and a reason why people shouldn't use long-range radar to plot motion of a storm. There was a brouhaha over this on another website yesterday where the guy (vested NW FL interest) kept talking about the "turn had begun" I kept reminding them all not to watch long range or the IR at night, but if they were going to do that, consider the vortex fixes because those are the only true measurements not taken from certain angles or with certain optical biases. So what do we have now? We've got a storm at 24.22 which is nearly as low as it has been all day (had bee up to 24.55 for a while earlier) and a continued trend around 270+/-. The NHC's New Orleans East to Waveland track crosses 25N at 87W. They're probably going to hit it fairly close. We'll have to see what comes out in another hour or so as for track updates and such. Model guidance @ 12z (GFS/GFDL) swung from their MS 06z runs back into Louisiana. The low level models run off of that should reflect similar solutions as they are updated. There's a shot the 18z's move further east while the 00z's may swing back west.

But if you're on the Gulf Coast, don't be complacent. Deal with the potential risk for what it is. Just because you're in Mobile, Pensacola, Seaside, Houma, New Iberia or whatever, understand your threat and your tolerance for inconvenience and decide accordingly. I'm next to positive that I'm going to try to ride things out here with my dog who has taken slightly ill. My kids and wife will be out. I have places to go if necessary and a bike to ride to get there should auto curfews go into effect at some point.

As for Louisiana, they're doing the right thing. They didn't want to panic everyone considering we don't have the time required to implement the contra-flow plans via the phased in systems they use because we're too close to landfall. Several of the low lying areas called for mandatories early today and many of the parishes have also called for voluntaries. The contra-flow isn't just on the I-10 east through MS, it also utilizes the I-55, I-10 west to Houston and the I-59. All tolls are canceled and they're allowing as many people as possible to still go about their planning and business before they kick into high gear.

Steve