The misses and I will evac to Austin. Likely anyway. Everyone here is getting seriously ready. We haven't had a serious hurricane strike in decades.

Rita may strike with the same CAT 5 storm surge — but I believe it will cover a somewhat smaller extent
of coastline — about 50NM - compared to Katrina's 120 mile wide path of utter devastation. But keep in mind
even if the storm does come ashore near Freeport — the storm surge in Galveston Bay will be severe.

She's big and getting bigger catagory. From the weather underground.

RITA EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY 5 - 914MB PRESSURE

The latest RECON, and confirmed measurements from NHC - report RITA's central pressure is now down to 914mb. MAX sustained flight winds are 161Kts, with sustained surface winds of 165mph -=- and gusts to 185mph. The thermal eyewall temp difference is an astounding 21°C The pressure has been dropping at 6mb/hr which may be s some form of record of it's own. Furthermore, there are no signs yet that Rita has finished intensifying.

This places Rita in the top 10 of all-time Atlantic Basin Storms — and in the top 4 for the Gulf of Mexico.
At it's peak — Katrina reached 902mb.

Latest numerical guidance continues to show a landfall on Saturday between Port O'Connor and Freeport.

Rita is now at 914mb of pressure, joining the top 10 of biggest gulf storms ever. (Katrina was 907 at max I believe). The pressure is a good indication of how big the storm is. 960 mm Hg is standard pressure, one atmosphere. The lower it is, the worse it is for hurricanes. Yesterday it was around 950 mm Hg, a few hours ago it was 934 mm. Now it's 914 mm. They expect it to weaken before it hits land, but not much.

I hope I have a house left.

Update: How bad will it be? I biked home, along tree-lined avenues, and wondered how much would be left. I dug up the Katrina data, and found this:

KATRINA WEAKENED AS IT MOVED INLAND TO THE NORTH-NORTHEAST BUT WAS STILL A HURRICANE 100 MILES INLAND NEAR LAUREL MISSISSIPPI.

We're not in the direct path, but to the NE of the eye (which is worse). But we are 50 miles inland. We might see a cat 1 strength hurricane, nothing more than that I don't think.


Update: It's cat5 and STILL INTENSIFYING. (From weather underground Steve Gregory)

The 3:37 pm eye report from the hurricane hunters found a 914 mb pressure and flight level winds of 161 knots (186 mph). These numbers plus the satellite intensity estimates support upgrading Rita to a Category 5 hurricane. Tonight, Rita will be passing over the Loop Current, a warm eddy of water in the Gulf that aided Katrina's growth to a Category 5 hurricane. Fueled by this pool of deep warm water and an almost ideal upper level wind environment, Rita should continue to intensify until Thursday morning, when she will pass beyond the Loop Current. The eye has started to shrink as Rita continues to intensify, and is down to 20 nm diameter from 25 nm earlier this afternoon. By the time the eye shrinks down to 10 nm, the eyewall will collapse and an eyewall replacement cycle begin, putting an end to this intensification cycle. With another 12 hours to go before this happens, Rita could approach historic intensity, and is already one of the ten strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record.