This is becoming surreal. Here is the latest Accuweather forecast for Hurricane Rita (excerpts, emphasis added):

Today's Discussion Posted: September 22, 2005 2:09 a.m. Rita is an historic category 5 hurricane now packing sustained winds of 175 mph with gusts to near a mind boggling 215 mph. This is the season's second catastrophic hurricane. As of 2:00 AM EDT, Rita was centered near 24.8 north and 87.6 west. This places Rita 645 miles east-southeast of Corpus Christi, or 540 miles east-southeast of Galveston, Texas. The minimum central pressure was reported by hurricane hunter aircraft at 898 millibars (26.52 inches of mercury). This is the 3rd most intense Atlantic basin hurricane ever recorded. Rita was moving to the west-northwest at 9 mph. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 70 miles, and tropical storm-force winds extend outward up to 185 miles from the center of circulation. Given that Rita will continue to intensify the wind field will probably expand further over the next 24 hours.... ....Rita will continue to track westward through the southern Gulf of Mexico early Thursday morning with some further strengthening expected as it crosses the same warm waters that helped Katrina strengthen into a Category 5 hurricane. So, it is no surprise that this hurricane has become a catastrophic hurricane. Rita will generally track to the west as an upper-level high pressure ridge over Texas expands eastward across the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The track that Rita takes will depend on how this high moves, weakens and strengthens. We currently expect this upper ridge of high pressure to remain strong and steer Rita on a general westerly course across the southeastern Gulf of Mexico through Wednesday night into Thursday. Then we expect the high to either split or move eastward causing Rita to move west-northwest early Friday then more northwestward Friday night and Saturday. We are estimating landfall between Galveston and Port O'connor sometime between 6 p.m. Friday and 6 a.m. Saturday. Ocean water analysis shows some cooler water in place about 300 miles off the Texas coast, then warmer water again right near the Texas coast in our primary projected landfall area, so the intensity forecast at landfall will be a real challenge. After Rita makes landfall, it will head northwest between Austin and Houston then track between Dallas and Tyler Sunday. We expect hurricane force winds to spread over a large area of eastern Texas after landfall. In fact, high-rise buildings in the Houston area could experience wind gusts to over 100 mph. This could cause some windows to shatter. In addition to possible damaging hurricane-force winds, tornadoes might be spawned by the cyclonic rotation from Rita mainly east and northeast of the center of circulation. Storm surge of as high as 20-25 feet is possible along the coast near and to the right of landfall.