Is that a hurricane?!?!

So I get home from a hard day's work and see my Uncle Larry's car in the driveway. That's a bit odd, but whatev. I go inside and chat with him: hear about what he's up to and what everyone did today. The I turn to the TV. Larry's watching some type of Houston HD news talk station. There's a small box in the bottom right-hand corner of the TV. I see the familiar interstate-outlined shape of Houston so close to the Texas coast, but I'm thrown off by the circular moving mass to the southeast, obscuring Galveston.

"Is that a hurricane forming just off the coast?!?!"

I'm shocked. Practically speechless.

Larry just started laughing and switched to another station so I could see the weather.

I go to work for 10 hours and I come home and the line of thunderstorms that was sitting next to Galveston this morning magically turned into a tropical storm! And it would be a hurricane except there's not enough time for it to develop before landfall.

So apparently a hurricane can just randomly form off the coast of TX at any time . . . who knew!

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UPDATE: The storm still hasn't hit. It's moving only abt 7 mph, but from what I heard it's projected to hit around 10. And I just heard a blurb that it may be a full-blown hurricane by then. Yikes! This pic and article over at Fox News gives you a good idea of what we're in for. Yikes!

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FINAL UPDATE: 9/13/07 - After gaining strength in the Gulf by sitting off shore for hours, Tropical Storm Humberto became a hurricane and finally hit land around 2 a.m near High Island. Far enough away from Houston not to inflict any damage, thankfully. But we still need to pray for those in it's path and those whose lives it left behind in destruction.