Huff, Puff!

The Atlantic is having a larf.  Tropical Storm Hanna is about to lash New Jersey, before curling up the rest of the US Eastern coast, joining up with the raggedy remnants of Gustav, and re-empowering as an extra-tropical windstorm to menace Britain, Ireland and Northern Europe in general in about a week -- and us with this sodden ground, that's a recipe for a remake of the Great Storm of '87 that had a lot of trees down or the Burns' Day storm that, as I recall, led to much tree-dodging hilarity for Bristol students who had to cross the Downs on foot that night...

Meanwhile Hurricane Ike is skirting Haiti and the models show it blowing between Cuba and Florida, into the Gulf of Mexico where, you guessed it, it'll intensify in the warm water and curve North into the central Gulf Coast, with about half the models suggesting that really, New Orleans is getting to be a dumber place to live than Etna or Hackney.

( Ike tracks behind the cut )