Hurricane Ike appears destined to come ashore in Texas – much farther west than Gustav, which made landfall west of New Orleans in Louisiana.
But the impact on Kansas figures to be very similar.
“It’s going to be deja vu,” said Dick Elder, the meteorologist-in-charge of the Wichita branch of the National Weather Service.
Computer models suggest Ike will come ashore, take a sharp right turn as it links with an upper-level flow and dump on Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma and Missouri. Southeast Kansas may suffer a soaking as well, Elder said.
Wichita would be indirectly impacted, much as it was by Gustav: systems moving in from the northwest could stall — or even back up — as Ike bullies its way into the Mississippi Valley.
There’s a chance that Ike could come ashore so far west in Texas that its remnants get caught up in a different weather pattern, Elder said. If that happens, Kansas won’t be touched at all. But it’s too early yet to have a definitive answer.
Stay tuned.