Responding to LI Phil's first post...just took me awhile to get this typed in.

Well the last six hours have seen it just push the dry air away like no big deal. It is definitely "making its own weather."

You sure hit the nail on the head. The track is now the critical thing because the special discussion basically said Cat 4 or 5 at landfall. We don't need to worry about intensity now; we know anyone in its path is basically screwed.

I saw a post that some of the models shifted landfall to the east, some time after I posted about Katrina just missing the last forecast point a hair to the east.

NHC didn't mention the possibility of a track change at 7am, and the rapid intensification was, well, enough news for now. It must be absolutely crazy there right now.

But I think there is a possibility of a track change and they'll know more in a little while. Of course now they're probably not going to go with the public advisory schedule for anything that is not routine; time is so critical that if they know something they're going to let people know right away.

You'd think with all the rapid intensification going on Katrina would be wobbling - if you zoom in on sat, the wobbles are there, but they are small, I guess because this thing is such a symmetrical monster with such inertia. Looking at the sat image, it didn't curve for over three hours (3am to 6am - 1045Z is the last sat image on the loop) -- it's gone straight. It's going straight for the next forecast point, but what are the implications of that? Any small change now has larger implications for landfall.