Coming down to the wire now. With 36 hours left before landfall, it’s still a guessing game of it’s exact landfall. Texas is going to get hit, although I and everyone else had figured this, there was still always chance for weather to do what it does best (suprise us) and change something. However, except for the path taking a slight jog to the east, we’re going to see a devistating hurricane make landfall here in Texas.

By the time Rita reaches DFW, it will be a Tropical Storm and will be mostly a rain event than a wind event. Don’t think it will not be windy though. Rita will retain it’s Tropical Storm status for a reason, it will still have winds between 39MPH to 73MPH. Gusts can always go higher, and of course if a storm cell spawns a tornado, that will be more problems compounded.

I can’t say exactly how much rain we’ll get, but it will be a lot. Certainly more than we’ve got in quite some time and more than our ground could possible soak up. Flooding is going to be a big problem. Expecially if the stall in the motion happens as is expected. Take a look at that path map. Notice how small the lines between 7AM Sunday and 7AM Tuesday is. Rita is going to almost sit still practicly on top of us dumping more rain than we’ll know what to do with.

Hurricanes are tricky things to forecast. As much as we like to think we know everything, we don’t. So much is in play when it comes to weather that even a daily forecast is tricky sometimes. Hurricanes are a whole other beast. The motion of a hurricane depends on something as slight as a high pressure ridge moving 10 miles east or west. A little wind sheer here, a frontal boundry there. Anything can nudge a tropical system to move in another direction, and not everything can be predicted by the computer model programs, no matter how good we get.

Regardless of the weakening of the storm durring the past 12 hours, this does not mean Rita is going to be a pushover. 150 MPH winds will still relocated your house to new property. At this high of wind speeds, the difference between 175 and 150 is a drop in the bucket. No matter what, only bad can happen. You can only hope that Rita encounters some upper level wind sheer that will tear it apart, or that the waters near the coast are cool enough to weaken it.

My prediction for the DFW area at the moment is sustained winds of 35 to 40 MPH with winds sometimes gusting to 70. Rain, lots and lots of rain. Depending on where the storm cells land, and just how long Rita stalls over top of us: 7 to 15 inches. Of course certain areas will recieve less, some will recieve more. It’s all about location, location, location.

I’m done with my rant today… I need sleep.