Tendrils of Rita

When I was leaving the house this morning I saw clouds to the south of Monroe. The clouds arced across the sky from the southwest to the southeast. These whispy clouds are the outer tendrils of hurricane Rita.

Here's the radar image, taken from weather.com, from about the same time:

Think of Louisiana as "boot shaped". Monroe is in the top part of the boot. You'll see on the (eastern) border with Louisiana and Mississippi a ">" shape. This is near the top of the picture, in the middle. Monroe is pretty much due west of that ">", about half way between Texas and Mississippi.

I see that Monroe is just slightly outside Rita's projected path. As it makes landfall it will lose energy. However, we'll still be on the eastern, strongest, side of the hurricane. Jackson, Mississippi is due east of us. It sustained hurricane force winds when Katrina made landfall. We're expecting to be hit with rain and high winds come tomorrow, with the strong possibility of losing power. That's what we worry about the most, given that the temperature this last week has been around 100F. Jimmy and Jason, our friends in Texarkana, look to be right in the path of the storm.

We're fortunate, though, as I expect there to be a lot of devestation on the coast. With luck, we'll only get hit with a tropical storm. Just in case, we stocked up on water.