Goodbye, Irene

Glad to see her heading out to sea, but I feel for everyone who was in her path. It was a relief to learn that she was downgraded to a tropical storm as she arrived ashore in Brooklyn (specifically at Coney Island--she brought her own cyclones & didn't need to ride the wooden roller coaster of the same name). She certainly left behind a huge mess; I'm just grateful not to have the flooding in my little corner of the world, despite our local need for a bit more rain.

Now the potential tropical storm (hurricane?) Katia is blowing far out in the Atlantic south of the Cape Verde islands this morning. I fervently pray that IF she hits the USA she's relatively minor AND that she goes into the Gulf of Mexico to Texas, simply because they need rain more desperately than the Carolinas do.