looks like landfall is now 60-75 mins away. pressure is slowly rising so it may come in closer to 942mb. that'll put it way up on the rank list of storms by minimum pressure at landfall, but the winds are low-end cat 3 now. recon data is now only supporting cat 2, but i doubt nhc will let that ride as it would be kinda stupid to have a hurricane with a cat 4 pressure and cat 2 winds. the center of the hurricane is unleashing its full fury on cameron parish. it looks like final landfall will be a few miles east of the sabine pass, then over sabine lake. the impact at port arthur should resemble what pensacola got from dennis, only with a stronger surge factor. orange should get raked pretty hard too. with the eye track beaumont should get some hurricane force winds, but the weaker western eyewall and not quite as much damage as if the storm were 10-20 miles west. rita already appears to be slowing down a little, and should keep steadily slowing as it plows inland tomorrow... by sunday it should just be drifting northward. some kind of cyclonic loop should ensue near the tx/la border west of shreveport sunday-monday... steering currents will be weak so it's hard to say where the storm will track from there (range of possibilities include almost every direction except for north and northwest. most likely it will begin to drift more to the south. the red and sabine river valleys are likely to face a significant flood threat during the coming week.
HF 0701z24september