>>>>http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index.shtml
>>>>
>>>>Earl is currently 135mph, 931mb Category 4. Currently forecast to skirt the US SE coast, but the track has been adjusted slightly westward over the last few days.
>>>
>>>The category estimate has been increasing by the day. Usually it's the other way around, they lose steam.
>>>
>>>Katrina was not thought to be a particularly severe hurricane until it made landfall.
>>
>>No, that's not correct. It was a huge Category 5 storm, according to Wikipedia the 6th strongest Atlantic storm on record: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina
>>
>>At the time I posted a message here that at one point its eye was as large as Lake Okeechobee in Florida: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Katrina-noaaGOES12.jpg
>
>You are mistaken, Al. It blew through Florida without doing much. Then it picked up over the Gulf and found New Orleans and the Mississippi coast cities.

That was swampfall, not landfall ;)