Tropical Depression #18... what would become Hurricane Rita formed the morning of September 18, 2005. It was my second day of work at WWL, following the personnel displacement during Hurricane Katrina. The entire WWL team was displaced at that point. In a record breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, Rita became another record breaker. Passing over the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico ( a warm river of water that runs from the Yucatan Channel into the Gulf and then back out into the Atlantic through the Florida Straits), Rita rapidly intensified into a category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 180 miles per hour and minimal central pressure of 895 millibars. It was the 4th most intense storm on record behind Wilma (2005), Gilbert (1988), Labor Day (1935). (Katrina is the 6th most intense storm.) Rita sets the record for the greatest one hour pressure drop, and the most intense storm in the Gulf of Mexico. (A record that had just been set by Hurricane Katrina 3 weeks before.) Rita made landfall between Johnson's Bayou and Sabine Pass, Texas at 2:38 am September 24th, but storm surged overwhelmed damaged levees in New Orleans, sending more water into parts of the city.

As of 1:30 pm today, winds have already shifted at the airport. We are starting to see a pretty good breeze out of the North, and signs of clearing to the North and West. It looks like the rest of your Sunday, we'll see spotty showers and an isolated thunderstorm. We will continue to see breezy conditions. You'll wake up tomorrow, and it will feel like Fall!

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