Morning Rita Discussion -- Still on Track

I received some interesting commentary on my discussion of Rita last night. First off, thanks to Don Sutherland and Larry Cosgrove for interjecting some critique into my discussion -- it is greatly appreciated.

One thing that has not been brought up in my discussions of Rita is warm water depth and heat content. You hear all the time the discussion of how hurricanes need 80 F+ water to thrive and grow. This is partially true. The depth of the warm water and the kinetic potential of the warm water is also important factors in determining hurricane strength, particularly with slower-moving and/or stronger hurricanes.

There is a good write-up on Tropical Cyclone kinetic potential here and what it means. If I find others, I will include them in this write-up. Trust me, I don't everything about how that plays into the development of hurricanes at large BUT I do believe that by looking at maps one can figure out potentially what a hurricane may strengthen to.

The map above shows the kinetic potential in the Gulf. The yellow, orange, and red colors are the ones that hurricanes do their best work on. The darker the blue shading, that's where there is less kinetic potential for a hurricane to grow.

This map shows the depth of the 26 C isotherm. That's the magic number for hurricanes to survive. The deeper this layer of warm water, especially for slower moving storms, the longer the storm can survive and sustain itself. Shallow layers of warm water can cause some disruption in the sustaining of a hurricane as hurricanes are warm-core systems and their lifeblood as warm water.

So what does this have to do with Rita?
Well, by looking at and guessing where Rita is going to track we can make a guestimate as to how strong Rita potentially can get. There have been some meteorologists that have pegged Rita to Category 5 status (and one infamous weather guy in State College who's hyping Category 5 like crazy). There is potential for that to occur. However, I don't see it happening. As Rita moves west she will likely strengthen from her current status as a Category 4 storm with 135 mph winds at 8 AM ET to a possible Category 5. You need everything to be gosh darn absolutely perfect for Cat 5 to happen. My gut says it's going to get close but I don't know if it will happen.

The models this morning have centered in between Corpus Christi and Galveston with one model outliering in either side. I strongly believe that the forecast we've been putting out there is going to continue to remain the same and hence my zones are of much higher confidence this morning than yesterday.

Calls as of 7:30 this morning
Peak: 155, 923 mb (slightly up from last night as Rita has dramatically itensified)

Landfall Strength: 125-130, 947 mb (a very strong Category 3 storm)

Zones:

Low -- Padre Island to Port Arthur
Mid -- Corpus Christi to High Island
High -- Port O'Connor to Galveston
Center -- near Sargent, TX

By center, that's the mean center of the 'highest' risk zone. That's not where the landfall will occur, it's simply a mid-point between two places. Anywhere between Port O'Connor and the Galveston/Houston area is under the gun.

The above image depicts what a Category 5 hurricane would do in terms of storm surge in the Houston/Galveston area. This was a mock drill called 'Hurricane Carly' that was run to show what would happen to the Houston area if a Category 4 hurricane hit. This is based on what Carla did in 1961 in terms of storm size and impact.

As you can tell, much of Galveston would be under water from a Category 4 hurricane hitting just west of Galveston island.

This is the potential damage, in dollars, for the Houston area. This 'mock' storm would be the 2nd costliest storm on record, behind only Katrina. If Rita makes landfall near Galveston, this scenario may very well play out.