Overnight a new tropical depression got its act together, pulled in tighter and became our next hurricane, Katia. The storm is still way out in the Atlantic, but it’s moving very fast and predicted to become a major hurricane by Sunday, as seen on the 5-day probability cone:

Compare this to the 5-day cone from Irene exactly a week ago:

Irene didn’t reach major status until after it got past Cuba, even though it was predicted to reach that status when passing the Dominion Republic. Hurricane scientology 101 – warmer waters increase hurricanes. That’s important to note considering Katia is expected to reach the major status while it’s still way out and has plenty of extra warm water to travel across before reaching any major land.

It’s still too early to tell how this storm will affect the United States, but so far the projections have it pretty close to the same path as Irene. Should it continue that path, the eastern coast will be in for another pounding and mass destruction. I’m not sure if the people or our economy can really handle that right now.