Splitting the Pac-16

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With Texas A&M all but gone from the Big XII and Oklahoma threatening movement, the possibility of a Pac-16 is alive again, a lot sooner than most expected. Although the Pac-12 has publicly stated that they’d prefer to stay at 12, it would almost assuredly move to expand if the Big XII fell apart as a result of SEC accepting the Aggies. There is no guarantee that expansion would shake out that way, but the Pac-16 with Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State added is one of the more plausible scenarios.

Of course an expanded Pac would mean redoing the recently created divisions. So how would that shake out? There are a few options.

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T.S. Nate could threaten U.S. Gulf Coast

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I’m blogging again over at Weather Nerd. Here’s an excerpt from this morning’s update on Tropical Storm Nate:

Sometimes, in the life of a tropical cyclone, there is a distinct turning point in the evolution of the track forecast, where the computer models suddenly shift toward a new and markedly different solution. When this happens, the National Hurricane Center…generally waits to see a few more model “runs” confirming the new thinking before it fully adopts the new consensus in its official forecast. This memorably happened in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina, when the models shifted early Friday morning toward a solution targeting the New Orleans area, inspiring my “New Orleans in peril” post at midday Friday…eight hours before the NHC actually adopted the track that the models had begun shifting toward almost 24 hours before. …

We may be seeing a similar turning point with Tropical Storm Nate this morning. Yesterday, this storm looked like it was bound for Mexico. But things have changed overnight. This morning, shortly before the National Hurricane Center’s 11am EDT advisory, Charles Fenwick tweeted: “In the Gulf of Mexico, there was a good consensus on Nate heading to Tampico, Mexico. This morning, though, GFDL & HWRF shifted northeast with solutions south of Louisiana and in the middle of the western Gulf of Mexico respectively.” …

The Houston Chronicle‘s Eric Berger, in a post titled “The northern Gulf of Mexico is back in play,” elaborates:

Just as it looked like the overnight models were converging on one solution for the track of Tropical Storm Nate, this morning’s models made an almost wholesale change.

Instead of an eventual westerly motion into Mexico, a number of forecast models have switched back to a more northerly movement by late this weekend, bringing Nate toward the northern Gulf of Mexico coast by late Sunday or Monday. …

Critically, if Nate does move northward it will cross over very warm Gulf waters, and would have several days to intensify. This raises the possibility of a major hurricane striking the New Orleans region. …

To be clear, there is no reason to panic about possible threats to specific locales. The forecast can and will change in the coming hours and days. But with the Gulf waters being so warm, and so many vulnerable spots along the coast, this is definitely a situation to watch closely.

Read the whole thing, and stay tuned to Weather Nerd for the latest.

Having too much fun with realignment and Lord of the Rings quotes

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There isn’t much point in blogging the latest conference realignment developments, since they’ll all change in 5 minutes, then change back again. Instead, a sampling of amusing (to me, at least) tweets — extended slightly for the blog format in a few cases — applying Lord of the Rings quotes to Conferencepocalypse. (Credit to Brandon Minich and DocErock on some of these.)

And yes, I did the same thing last summer. They’re still funny! And we have a bunch of new ones! With the various characters in new roles!

“A day may come when the courage of men fails… when we forsake our friends, and break all bonds of fellowship. That day is today!”

“Embrace the power of the superconference, or embrace your own destruction.”

“DeLoss, the enemy is moving. Slive’s forces are massing in the East; his eye is fixed on Columbia. And Oklahoma, you tell me, has betrayed us. Our list of allies grows thin!”

“This evil cannot be concealed by the power of the Longhorn Network. We do not have the strength to withstand both Slive and Scott! Texas cannot stay here.”

Texas A&M: “You think you are wise, Bevo. Yet for all your subtleties, you have not wisdom. Do you think the eyes of the 12th Man are blind?”

“The SEC? what madness drove them in there?”

“By foul craft Slive is breeding an army that can…cover great distance at speed.” #SECspeed

“One does not simply walk into the SEC. There is evil there that does not sleep.”

As A&M consults its Palantir, Silve’s voice booms out: “BUILD ME A TEAM WORTHY OF THE SEC.”

“The enemy has many spies . . . birds . . . tweets . . .”

Big East: “Are you frightened?” Big 12: “Yes.” Big East: “Not nearly frightened enough. I know what hunts you.”

Dan Beebe: “Where is the Husker and the Buffalo? Where is the Aggie that was oy-oy-oy-ing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West, behind the hills, into shadow. How did it come to this?”

“Arise, Riders of Beebe! … Ride now! Ride now! Ride! Ride to ruin, and the world’s ending! DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!!”

“Is there any hope, DeLoss, for the Big 12?” “There never was much hope. Just a fool’s hope.”

Beebe: “My line has ended. A&M has deserted us. OU’s betrayed me. Abandon your posts! Flee, flee for your lives!”

“No tomb for the Big 12. No long, slow sleep of death embalmed. We shall burn, like the heathen conferences of old!”

“Farewell, Iowa State and Baylor. I release you from my conference. Go now and die in what way seems best to you.”

Shake down the thunder from the sky!

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notredame-lightning

Thunderbolts and lightning (very very frightening)! Photo via @bubbaprog.

College football season started off with a bang — or, more precisely, a loud crack of thunder — with a wild weekend that saw two games (Michigan-Western Michigan and West Virginia-Marshall) called early due to bad weather, and another (Notre Dame-South Florida) last for approximately 83 hours, plenty of time for roughly 26 red-zone turnovers by the Irish (or thereabouts), causing Brian Kelly to wake up the echoes even as Mother Nature shook down the thunder. Elsewhere, USC said au revoir to the Gophers, but without inspiring much confidence for Saturday’s game against the Utes, still less the rest of the season; erstwhile defense powerhouse TCU lost a Old West style shootout at Baylor; Boise State wiped the floor with SEC (it’s a WAR!) contender and virtual home team Georgia; newly independent BYU won at Ole Miss on a late defense touchdown (it’s a WAR!!); defending national champ Auburn nearly lost to Utah Freakin’ State of the WAC (it’s a WAR!!!); Oregon failed, again, to perform well in a big game, losing badly to LSU (it’s a…okay, LSU actually looked quite good); and Oregon State lost to Sacramento Freakin’ State of Division 1-AA (ugh).

In the 3rd annual Living Room Times College Football Pick ’em Contest, Chris Palm (@chrispalm) and Jacob Sommer (“The Commodore” a.k.a. “Irish ND”) are tied for the lead with 31-4 prediction records. (It’s the second straight year Sommer has led after Week 1.) All three got TCU-Baylor, Notre Dame-South Florida, and Oregon State-Sacramento State wrong. Palm also got LSU-Oregon wrong; Sommer got Colorado-Hawaii wrong.

Four contestants are just a point back: Marty West Paul Freelend (“Have Notebook Will Travel”), David K., @fuegote and @ndtex, all 30-5. Nine others are tied 2 points behind the leaders at 29-6. Complete standings here (visible only to group members, alas).

P.S. Here’s an exit question. True or false: despite their respective outcomes, the USC-Minnesota game provided more cause for long-term concern about the Trojans’ prospects this season than the Notre Dame-South Florida game did for the Irish’s prospects.

I say true. Notre Dame out-gained USF 2-1. By rights, they “should” have won that game, but mistakes got the better of them. The Irish are never going to commit that many turnovers in the red zone again; the law of averages won’t allow it. (Knock on wood.) Cut out that handful of terribly damaging stupid mistakes, and ND is in okay shape. USC, meanwhile, just doesn’t look very good.

I still think the Irish will beat the Trojans on October 22, and will finish with a better record. I stand by my preseason predictions of 9-3 for ND, 8-4 for USC. (Although 8-4 and 7-5 are certainly more in play today than they were on Friday.)

Pac 12 Power Rankings – Week 1

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Well, it certainly wasn’t a pretty opening week for the Pac-12, with struggles against FCS opponents and a lackluster performance by Oregon in the weekend’s marquee matchup of top 5 programs. Still, it wasn’t all bad, with some impressive individual performances, and solid wins by the Bay Area teams. As I’ll be ranking teams based on performance so far, the first few weeks are likely to see much greater change than later weeks, when we will have a more complete picture of each team (and more head-to-head matchups to consider).

NORTH
1. Stanford (1-0, 0-0 Pac-12)
LW 2
An easy win against a weak opponent. Doesn’t tell us much about the Cardinal, whose game against Duke next week will likely be just as unrevealing. November date with Oregon may be first (and only) real test. Moved up a spot largely due to Oregon’s loss.

2. Oregon (0-1, 0-0)
LW 1
It should have been a clash of titans, instead it was a one-sided win for the LSU Tigers. Oregon didn’t help itself much either, losing the ball four times. Heisman hopeful LaMichael James had one of his weakest performances as a Duck. A close loss would have been enough to keep Oregon on top, but this one wasn’t close.

3. Cal (1-0, 0-0)
LW 5
The Bears looked shaky to start, but recovered quickly to take control of the game against Fresno State. Transfer QB Zach Maynard performed well for Cal. This win, plus weak performances by the rest of the Pac-12 North, helped boost the Bears into 3rd for now.

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Pac 12 Power Rankings – Preseason

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With the first Pac-12 team, new member Utah, set to kick off in under two hours [FRIDAY MORNING UPDATE: The Utes notched the first ever win by a Pac-12 team, 27-10 over Montana State], it’s time for some last-minute Pac-12 power rankings. I’ll be breaking teams down by division this season, like most other bloggers and pundits are doing. I’ll give a brief explanation for each slot. Feel free to agree or criticize in the comments.

NORTH
1. Oregon
The final Pac-10 champion and loser of last year’s BCS title game, the Ducks return 13 starters including QB Darron Thomas and Heisman hopeful RB LaMichael James. If they can avoid distraction from the off-field troubles of the season, particularly those involving agent Willie Lyles, the Ducks look to repeat much of their success from last season, assuming of course they aren’t sidelined by NCAA sanctions before season’s end.

2. Stanford
The other juggernaut of the Pac-12, Stanford’s only blemish last season was a loss in Eugene to the Ducks. The good news is the Cardinal get Oregon at home this season, and face a slate of teams that are unlikely to challenge them, aside from USC and perhaps Notre Dame. A key to the Cardinal’s success will be the performance of Heisman Trophy hopeful QB Andrew Luck, but they are also breaking in a new head coach this season after Jim Harbaugh left for the NFL. [P.S. BY BRENDAN: Stanford is also breaking in three new offensive linesmen.]

3. Washington
The Huskies rallied from a 3-6 season start to win their final 4 games of last season, including a rematch upset of Nebraska in the Dawgs’ first bowl game since 2002. The question is whether 3rd year coach Steve Sarkisian can continue to positive direction for the Huskies against another tough slate of opponents, 6 of whom had 10+ wins last season. The Huskies are breaking in a new QB, but a much improved O-Line and defense could help make up for the inexperience there. The return visit to Nebraska looms large, and the Huskies will face four of the strongest teams in the conference down the stretch (Utah, Stanford, Oregon and USC). There is little margin for error for the Huskies team hoping to return to its position as a power team in the conference and avoid a slide back into the mediocrity of the past decade.

4. Oregon State
The Beavers are one of the hardest teams to predict each year. One game they shine, the next they fizzle. They have produced some stunning upsets (just ask USC) and some inexplicable losses (just ask Washington State). Returning QB Ryan Katz and WR James Rogers will be the players to watch on an offense that returns 8 starters. On the other hand, Rogers’ past problems with injuries may limit his potential impact, and the defense is much shakier. Inexperience and size could be issues for the Beavers.

5. California
Will Jeff Tedford and the Cal bears continue to disappoint, or rebound after last year’s bowl-less season? I’m leaning towards the former. The Bears will be led by new QB Zach Maynard, who transfered from Buffalo after the 2009 season. On top of that, some changes in the offensive staff and playbook could limit the Bears versatility. Adding to the difficulty is a season played, not at home Memorial Stadium which is being renovated this year, but in San Francisco at AT&T Park, a facility they won’t even be practicing in during the week. The Bears could very likely end up in last place in the Pac-12 North by the end of the season.

6. Washington State
Cougar coach Paul Wulff may be on the hottest seat in the conference right now with an abysmal 5-32 record over the last three seasons at WSU. Anything less than a bowl berth is likely going to be the end of the line for the coach, but this could be the Cougar team to save him. QB Jeff Tuel is experienced and skilled and he has some good receivers to help him out. Washington State is helped out by a very winnable slate of games to start the season and a few more down the stretch that gives them plenty of opportunities to get the needed six wins, despite facing both Stanford and Oregon, along with newcomer Utah. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the Cougs reach 6 wins and a bowl by season’s end, likely finishing above both Oregon State and Cal in the process. But until they’ve proven it on the field, they get the #6 spot.

SOUTH
1. USC
Regardless of where the Trojans finish, they are still bowl-ineligible (and ineligible to compete in the inaugural Pac-12 title game) thanks to the idiocracy that is the NCAA, but USC is, as usual, loaded with talent. Games against Utah in week 2 and at Arizona State in week 4 could have huge impacts on the race for the title, even if the Trojan’s can’t officially win it. More good news is that the Trojans will skip regular thorn in the side Oregon State this season. The bad news is they face Oregon and Washington, two teams that they have had little success against in recent years, before closing out the season against UCLA.

2. Utah
Newcomer Utah will get its chance to prove it belongs and has, in my opinion, a legitimate shot at representing the Pac-12 South in the inaugural Pac-12 championship game. An ineligible USC and an ASU team being hampered by injuries provides a key opportunity for the Utes to establish a name for themselves. Getting to miss games against both Pac-12 North contenders Oregon and Stanford also plays to Utah’s advantage. A win in week two against USC in the Pac-12 opener could set the stage for a dominant season and silence Utah’s critics once and for all.

3. ASU
An early presumptive favorite to win the Pac-12 South crown, ASU has been hampered by a number of injuries to key players (QB Steven Threet is out for multiple concussions) and some distractions off the field, particularly those involving the always controversial Vontaze Burfict. However, all may not be lost for the Sun Devils. With USC out of the race, and UCLA and Colorado unlikely to pose a real threat, ASU need only finish ahead of Utah and Arizona to win the division crown, and could do so without a stellar record.

4. Arizona
The Wildcats have never been to the Rose Bowl, and the road to Pasadena has gotten just a bit harder with the switch to divisions and a championship game. While they won’t have to deal with USC as a contender for the top spot this season, they do face the Trojans early on. In fact, after their cupcake opener against Northern Arizona, the Wildcats head to Oklahoma State before returning home to host Stanford and Oregon. A 1-4 start for Mike Stoops and co. is a very real, very likely possibility. The good news is it would mean very little in terms of the race for the division championship, and even with that slow a start, if the Wildcats can keep themselves motivated, can play out down the stretch against a much more winnable slate, much like the one that allowed them to climb into the top tier of the rankings last season. An experienced QB in Nick Foles is a benefit, but the offense is overall very new, especially on the line, which could limit his ability to make plays. Really, it could go any direction for the Wildcats.

5. UCLA
Facing a seemingly do-or-die season for Slick Rick, the Bruins shook things up in the offseason with some coaching changes, including Neuheisel taking over as QB coach and hiring two new coordinators. Recently QB Kevin Prince was named the starter, a move which was not exactly met with enthusiasm, as many were hoping for star recruit Brett Hundley to take the spot. Talent-wise, the Bruins have the pieces, but it remains to be seen whether the coaching staff can inspire and utilize them to actually win games.

6. Colorado
Good news Buffs, the Dan Hawkins era is officially over and you are no longer stuck with Texas calling all the shots. Bad news Buffs, your team is breaking in a new coach, facing a whole new slate of conference foes, and looking at a big shift in offensive style. The Buffaloes return a lot of experienced players and have a chance to prove themselves in their new conference. I’m picking them for last now as a bit of an unknown quantity with a lot of question marks, but Colorado could surprise and move up the ranks. I’d be very surprised, however to see them compete for the top of the division. Simply earning a bowl berth would be a big step in the right direction.

3rd annual LRT CFB Pick ‘em Contest!

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It’s that time of year again… time for the 3nd annual Living Room Times College Football Pick ‘em Contest! It’s free! It’s fun! Join in!

To join the group, click here, then enter Group ID number 20146 and password PANIC. Basic rules:

• We’ll be picking all games involving AP Top 25 teams + all games involving Pac-12 teams + all games deemed “interesting” by Yahoo’s editors.

• No point spreads. We’re picking the games straight-up.

• The deadline is five minutes before each game. Thursday games generally are not included, but Friday games sometimes are. So for instance, this week, for full possible points, you’ll want to make your picks before 5:25 PM MDT Friday! (That said, if you forget to enter your picks before the weekend’s first included game(s), you can still predict the remaining games. Obviously, you’ll get no points for any games that started before you entered your picks, but at least you aren’t shut out for the entire weekend because, say, you forgot about TCU-Baylor.)

• Unlike last year, I don’t presently plan to drop the lowest weekly score. So make sure you enter every week! When signing up, you may want to select the option to have Yahoo! send you a reminder 1 or 2 days before the deadline.

• As per usual, there’s no monetary or tangible prize — just the respect and admiration of your peers, and recognition on Twitter and the blog, like Marty West got in 2010 and Lisa Velte got last year.

Speaking of which: contestants are encouraged, in choosing their “Pick Set Name,” to use either their real name, or a nickname / handle / pseudonym that will be recognizable to other members of the blog / Twitter community.

Once you’ve joined the contest, you’ll be able to access its Yahoo group page here. But first you gotta join! To do that, again, click here, then enter Group ID number 20146 and password PANIC. Good luck!

Katia, Lee and Maria, oh my?

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Katia, the storm that took Katrina’s place on the name list, is now officially a hurricane as of 11pm EDT, with winds of 75 mph. Hurricane Katia is expected to keep strengthening — to 100 mph in 1 day, 110 mph in 2 days, 115 mph in 3 days and 120 in 4 days (and it would hardly be shocking if she got even stronger, faster). It remains uncertain whether she’ll ever seriously threaten the U.S., though on balance, the more likely answer at this point seems to be “no.” But it’s just too early to say with a reasonable degree confidence. Any possible approach to the East Coast would likely occur no earlier than the weekend of 9/11, which is still an awfully long way off to be trusting computer models.

That said, if the current model tracks do roughly hold (a huge, huge “if” with such long-range forecasts), Bermuda could be under the gun sometime late next week. Here’s the prediction by one computer, the excellent European model, for a week from today:

ec850uva_17
There’s Hurricane Katia in the middle. But what about the storm at left? That would be Lee, currently known as “93L,” which the computer models have been predicting for several days now, and which the NHC is now watching, giving it a 60% chance of development in the next 48 hours. It’s unclear whether “proto-Lee” will become a serious hurricane threat to someplace along the Gulf coast, or just a big rainmaker, possibly in areas that could really use it. (Rick Perry’s prayers answered, perhaps?) The models are still vacillating wildly from run-to-run at this early stage.

Lastly, long-range models like the 16-day GFS are calling for Hurricane Maria to form in 7-10 days, and basically follow Katia’s path near Bermuda and out to sea. Florida State meteorologist (and provider of these wonderful maps) Ryan Maue calls it a “conveyor belt of ‘fish storms.'”

uv900_90

Stay tuned, as they say.

“Thank God for…Brendan Loy”

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Dude… it’s PajamasMedia.com.

I apologize to my LRT readers for having so little coverage of Hurricane Irene here, while I was blogging up a storm (pun intended) over at my Pajamas Media site, Weather Nerd. Ideally, I would have done more partial cross-posting — understandably, PJM doesn’t let me do full cross-posts, since they pay me for exclusive content, but I can do partial cross-posts — but I was just so busy that I didn’t have the time. With Hurricane Katrina, I could basically take a week off of life, skip my classes, cut out sleep, and blog, blog, blog. Now I’ve got a job and three kids, so it was a little trickier.

Anyway, I haven’t yet seen PJM’s stats for Weather Nerd’s traffic, but I’m told the numbers were “phenomenal.” I’m curious if I topped my Katrina record of 34,278 visitors in a day. I know there was a major impact on my number of Twitter followers, which had sloooowly climbed to 1,600 over the course of my three years on Twitter — then skyrocketed over the weekend to more than 2,200. Here’s a look at my Twitter stats, showing my total number of followers (dark orange line) and number of tweets per day (light orange bars) over the last three months:

twittercounter.chart(4)

And to think, now all those new followers will now have to be indoctrinated into the cult of #PANIC, not to mention Karl Benson WAC jokes. 🙂

I also suspect that my Saturday-night tidal gauge post, which was simultaneously Instalanched and @fivethirtyeight’d, may have inadvertently contributed to the disruption of NOAA’s servers, causing all of the tidal gauges to simultaneously go offline for about an hour. I don’t know whether this is true, but the correlation was pretty strong, inspiring me to tweet: “Where were you when Brendan Loy and Nate Silver broke NOAA? #SuggestedAlanJacksonSongs”

(If it was my fault… um, sorry, NOAA!)

Obviously, outside the blogosphere and twittersphere, my coverage didn’t cause anything like the level of attention I got during Hurricane Katrina. But I did get mentioned by Reason magazine editor-in-chief Matt Welch on Fox Business News yesterday, as you can see in the video clip at the top of this post. Watch the whole thing if you dare, but be warned, it’s mostly absurd, conspiratorial, Obama-bashing, right-wing nonsense. Though Lindsey Piegza’s comments about what the media did “once we found out that the storm wasn’t as strong” are true, as I wrote over at Weather Nerd:

Was Irene overhyped? Well, yes and no. … As I wrote in my post about “misconceptions,” the mere fact that a worst-case scenario doesn’t occur is hardly proof that it should never have been considered a possibility, or that precautions taken against such a scenario were therefore unwarranted. That’s totally illogical. I’m sure NOAA officials and others would love to have access to the 20/20 Hindsight Computer Model that some commentators seem to possess, but absent that, I believe it was completely justified and necessary to evacuate the folks who were evacuated, given the uncertainties in the forecast at the time decisions had to be made (specifically with regard to the storm surge). It’s the nature of the beast, given the current limits of our forecasting ability, that most “alarms” will be “false alarms.” It’s simply impossible to know with certainty what a storm will do at the time when evacuation decisions must be made, so we have no choice but to “prepare for the worst,” knowing full well that, in most cases and in most places, the worst will not happen. Thus, the fact of a “false alarm,” without more, is not evidence of improper “hype.”

Yet overhype certainly exists, not so much in the forecasts or the precautions, but in the media coverage. “Preparation for the worst-case scenario makes sense,” writes the Telegraph‘s Toby Harnden, “and could have saved hundreds during Katrina. But the worst-case scenario was largely portrayed as inevitable.” That’s a big problem in the early stages of hurricane coverage: the tendency to filter out the uncertainties, and treat the worst-case possibilities as probabilities or near-certainties. This, in turn, feeds into a cycle of self-perpetuating hype, which at some point seems to pass a “point of no return,” after which any walk-back of the doomsday talk is seen as irresponsibly advising people to “let their guard down” — not to mention hurting ratings. That helps cause what I view as the primary problem, which I’ve observed many times over the years: the MSM’s failure to adjust the tone and substance of the coverage once it has become apparent that the worst-case scenario(s), despite having previously been realistic possibilities, have now become unrealistic. In other words, they fail to dial down the hype a notch when the hype, once reasonable, is clearly no longer justified. I tweeted Friday morning about this, stating: “Media must be careful today. Fine line b/w preventing complacency & overhyping a weakened Irene (which breeds cynicism and…complacency). Ideally, you communicate that Irene is a big deal that people should take seriously, but no longer likely to be an apocalyptic hellstorm. But that’s hard to do in practice, especially when MSM weather coverage generally has two settings: 1. #Ignore. 2. #OMGApocalypticHellstorm!” …

This pattern is dangerous, because it can breed both complacency and arrogance — the latter exemplified by Anne Thompson’s comment on the NBC Nightly News that New Yorkers had gained their “swagger” back because “New York took the best that Irene could give, and made it through.” That statement might make sense, if Irene had given New York anything close to “the best [it] could give.” But Irene didn’t do that. It’s absolutely critical to understand that this was nowhere near the worst-case scenario for NYC & environs, thanks to Irene’s limited strength. That scenario will occur come to pass someday; it just wasn’t today, thank goodness. But my fear now is that, when the eventual day of reckoning comes, folks won’t take it seriously because “they said that about Irene too.” Complacency caused by media overhype can kill, just as surely as complacency caused by people “letting their guard down” due to underhype. Finding the proper balance is very tricky, and impossible to do perfectly — but the media certainly needs to do better.

By the way, on the subject of “hype,” Irene’s death toll is now 40, the fourth-worst in the U.S. since 1980, according to Nate Silver. And its economic damage could end up being between $14 billion and $26 billion, which would rank somehwere between fourth and eighth since 1980 in inflation-adjusted terms. So it’s not like this was a non-event (as folks in Vermont and the Catskills will tell you).

Anyway… on to the next worst-case scenario! Tropical Storm Katia — bearer of the name that replaced “Katrina,” which was of course retired from the rotating six-year name list — has formed off the African coast, and is expected to steadily strengthen, eventually becoming a major hurricane. Some computer models have shown an eventual threat to the U.S. East Coast (we’re talking about something in the 10 to 14 day range, maybe around the weekend of 9/11), but the latest model runs, via Ryan Maue, seem to imply recurvature out to sea:

uv900panel_22

Bottom line, it’s way, way, way too early to tell what Katia will do. But I’ll be watching. 🙂 And I’ll just make this highly speculative, totally unfounded, irresponsible comment: if the storm that inherited Katrina’s spot on the hurricane name list hits New York and/or Washington on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I may conclude that Michele Bachmann was right. 😛