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I haven't had much of a chance to digest much information.

It looks like the environment will be conducive for strengthening, through at least a day or so before landfall.. and might be conducive for longer. It depends on how much any trough affects it. A storm moving on a westerly component at landfall will likely be stronger than one moving north.

There is a good deal of drier air ahead of the system... it will be interesting to see what happens with this. I don't think it will be a major hindrance, but we saw Ophelia take quite a hit from dry air during her time.

Once it's south of LA, it will enter water that is untouched (even Katrina's wake didn't cool the GOM very much though). We have already seen two storms just completely 'explode' in the GOM this year... it's worth keeping that in mind. The official forecast takes it to 105kt, which is conservative in my opinion. I would not be surprised to see this go towards cat 4/5 at some point during its life-cycle.

As long as it moves fast, it's going to be a problem. If for some reason it continues west then slows down off the TX/LA coast it could draw in dry air off the landmass... this is more common the further south in TX it comes in. If it can sustain a decent speed, this won't be much of an issue.

This is the kind of storm that makes one wonder why anyone would think of putting evacuees from Katrina in boats along the gulf shore.

Surge could be a big problem again... especially if it goes mostly west... the waves will build all the way across. If it does deepen to cat4/5, it will build very large waves. Even if it weakens after, and before landfall, there could be significant coastal problems.

Everything points towards the western GOM, but this season says to keep eyes on it if you live in the NGOM.

I'm sure many, fueled by the media, will 'freak out' in the coming days as this thing strengthens. We have to remember how rare a storm like Katrina was. Even if this does become a major storm, the chances that it would do similar damage are very low - unless it directly targets a city like Houston.

There's a huge amount of dry air over Texas and even over Houston right now. It was nasty hot today, but not humid.

While dry air feeding into a hurricane will weaken it, I'm not sure that's the scenario. That high that is protecting Houston will move NE according nearly all the models. Dry air won't feed into Katrina.

It will get out of her way.