[Strategerist]

Heard (from somewhere deep in the bowels of the Katrina threads) that the storm took an unpredicted turn.

And that was completely, utterly wrong.

The NHC forecast landfall point (directly over New Orleans or a couple miles E of New Orleans) was essentially unchanged from 11PM Saturday night, through TEN more NHC forecast tracks, through landfall on Monday.

The storm ended up basically following this forecast track precisely.

The NWS was forcasting massive storm surges throughout Mississippi all day Saturday and all day Sunday. Mississippi was put under the same Hurricane Watches and Warnings as Louisiana.

[Strategerist]

Oops, I meant the NHC forecast landfall was unchanged from 11PM FRIDAY night, all through Saturday and Sunday, and the storm basically ended up following this precise track.

[Tuxedo]

IIRC before going to bed Sunday night the surge forecast for Biloxi was like 16-20 feet, and it ended up twice that. Is it true only 30% of coastal MS evacuated?

[james_f_hall]

It was tracking to where the eastern side of the storm would have been on the mouth of the Mississippi instead of over Gulfport / Biloxi. If that happened and at original CAT5 strength, we would be talking about 150,000 - 200,000 dead in NO it seems.