Eric Berger’s SciGuy science blog has the best ongoing coverage of Katrina, which is shaping up to be a disaster of unprecedented proportions. Although the latest news gives a little hope that it won’t be as bad as it looked like it might be earlier today. From Eric’s latest post:
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center plot out the official track for a storm by reviewing several models. As they follow a storm, the forecasters will tend to rely on some models more than others as they seem to handle that particular storm better.
Here’s a link to an image of some of the computer models the hurricane center uses for a forecast. Although the lines may look scattered, from past experience, I can say they’re actually pretty well clustered for Katrina.
The interesting thing to me is that a fair number of the models actually have the storm aimed toward Mississippi a bit. If this happens New Orleans could be spared the very worst.
Latest reports are that the three-lane highways north out of New Orleans are at a standstill, and that there are no hotel rooms between Biloxi and Mobile. If I were a praying man, my prayers would be with you.
Update 5:20 PM EDT:
WikiNews has a page up which seems likely to be receiving pretty timely updates.
And while you’re there, support the WikiMedia Foundation.
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