Just checking in here. It's pretty natural and even subconcious to statecast or citycast from time to time. Because of our various self-interests, we tend to focus on things that might indicate danger to us. It's probably a natural response. No, I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn *interruption*

That was a trip. All of the sudden this super heavy rainfall just passed through and I had to run back to my deck to get the carpet I had drying in the sun and breeze after my dog hurled on it this morning. Wonder if that was just an outter fringe element or part of the trof? Guess I should have been watching radar! Okay, I did. It came from the ENE so that's a rotating element. Damn, and the carpet was almost dry.*

Back to the post...

Okay so here I am sitting here wondering what I'm going to do. On the one hand, do I want to evacuate and miss the opportunity of a lifetime or do I want to play it safe? My thinking all along has been that the storm would be east of here. That needs to be caveated by the fact that I'd still see some tropical storm winds if Katrina went into Alabama. We had them on the lake sustained for 3 hours+ with Dennis out on Lake Pontchartrain and also with Opal* (*due to pressure gradient stuff with Opal). As mentioned earlier, I got 2 of my 3 kids out and up to Alexandria with my sister. My wayward middle child was out playing with his friends so he'll be heading up there tomorrow with my wife after she gets home from work and then also gets some sleep. I'm leaning about 70/30 against evacuating desipte the evidence to the contrary. I haven't seen true hurricane conditions since I was 1 year old in Betsy, so the passions of the heartstrings are being tugged against concious sanity that says if you don't get the hell out, YOU'RE GONNA DIE!

I've been watching the main trof since it was an upper low in Saskatchewan (or however you spell it). What I didn't count on was a south Atlantic high building in from the east. I knew there were two ridges of high pressure - 1) the upper high that had been spinning over the GC states for the last few days and the other one out there, and we knew that a trof would help amplify a weakness between the two ridges. But this is August, not October. It's not like a cold front is being dragged down to kick anything up northeast of me. It's quite the contrary situation (as amply explained by HankFrank above).

So for tonight, it's another night of chainsmoking and beer. I slept all of 2 hours last night (5ish to 7) and woke up realizing I had to evacuate because the condo/house/apt. I was living in had too many windows* and no place to hide (which is eerily similar to my own house).

I've got a dilemna on my hands for tomorrow. I'm thinking if the track shunts a bit west or stays roughly where it is and if Katrina is a Cat 4 with no letup in sight and the warmest waters in the Atlantic Basin fueling the fire, I'm going to go. But if she's gonna be heading farther east, I'm probably going to stay.

One last tidbit - funny thing about the north and east scenarios (ones that I've been latched onto since Wed. morning). Latest plot from Old Sailor's verification chart shows Katrina is currently south and west of the forecast track. Sat tracking before I started this post showed a decided WNW motion. No, that's not NW, it's WNW. Wobbles will turn into trends which will turn into parabolic curves. Should Katrina cross or be approaching 88 by tomorrow afternoon, the city pays or possibly is doomed. If she's already heading NNW in the 86th parallel (or whatever they call Longitudes), then people in Alabama will probably be forgetting about Ivan.

I'm looking for at least tropical storm conditions between Grand Isle/Golden Meadow/Port Fourchon and Seaside, FL. Somewhere in that swath will be a 70 or 80 mile stretch of a combination of gusts > hurricane force and sustained hurricane winds. And nestled within that zone will be a life-altering event for thousands of people.

Good luck to everyone.

Steve