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Excuse me, but look at the maps for Friday. NO was in the cone, not far from the center.

UPDATE 4-Hurricane Katrina moves further into Gulf of Mexico
Friday 26 August 2005, 2:33pm EST

NEW YORK, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Hurricane Katrina, a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds near 100 miles per hour, moved away from South Florida on a likely path toward the Florida Panhandle, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Friday.

On its projected path, the storm should miss the oil and natural gas rigs off the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas, according to the NHC forecast.

As of 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), the center of the storm was located about 60 miles west-northwest of Key West, Florida.

The NHC forecast more strengthening during the next 24 hours with Katrina possibly becoming a major Category 3 storm on Saturday.

The storm was moving west-southwest at nearly 8 mph with a gradual turn toward the west expected later tonight or Saturday.

NHC projected the storm's track would start to curve north early Saturday and strike the Florida Panhandle on Monday.

It wasn't until Saturday that computer models began predicting a north-central gulf coast landfall.

Hurricane Katrina aims for U.S. Gulf coast
Sat Aug 27, 2005 12:10 PM ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - Hurricane Katrina bulked up in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday for a second and potentially more deadly assault on the U.S. coast after killing seven people on its trek across southern Florida.

Watches and warnings were posted for parts of the Louisiana coast, including vulnerable low-lying New Orleans, alerting residents to expect hurricane-force winds within 36 hours.

By 11 a.m. (15000 GMT) on Saturday, the hurricane was 405 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, with winds near 115 mph (185 kph).

The storm was larger and more powerful than when it hit Florida's southeast coast on Thursday and was expected to swing gradually west-northwest, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

The projected path could see it come ashore anywhere between the storm-scarred Florida Panhandle and the Louisiana coast west of New Orleans. But computer models pointed to a more westerly track, putting Katrina ashore on Monday near the Louisiana-Mississippi border.