Ok, just how dumb are we or they? The Weather Channel just

[coffeenap]

told us about the right side of the hurricane being worse than the left--and labeled their map to show the "right" and "left" sides.

(Of course the right side is more devastating...;-)

[babylonsister]

1. Isn't the right side always considered

the 'dirty' side?

[fishnfla]

5. round here we call that the "hard shoulder"

its the worst of the worse

[indepat]

2. Delicious simile

[Davis_X_Machina]

3. Not really...

...is it the right side of the storm as you see it on the map, or the right side of the storm as you stand on the beach and look south, as most Americans do, at an approaching storm?

It's like stage left and stage right.

In military history, an army's left is always given relative to a commander's pespective, so that, say, in 1944, Holland was on the German extreme right, and on the Allied extreme left, at the same time.

[redsoxliberal]

4. the northeast quadrant of the storm is the one most prone to severe weathe

and the highest winds... for example... if katrina goes just east of New Orleans, as some are incorrectly saying is the best case scenario, then Mississippi will take the brunt of the severe weather... 10"+ rains, etc... but flooding in New Orleans will be worse due to the angle of the storm surge and water levels in New Orleans.
A track dead over New Orleans will also create devestation, but if the trajectory is JUST right, the storm surge may not be so bad... so if Katrina passes west of longitude of Ponchatrain (whatever) when making landfall and is tracking northeast, even a direct hit is probably better than missing New Orleans by 10 miles and passing northeast east of the lake... as that would create a massive storm surge into New Orleans city.
Realisticly, this storm will make landfall somewhere between New Orleans and Biloxi... the hope is either directly over new orleans, but going northeast, or much closer to biloxi where the storm surge in new orleans won't be such a problem. It seems unavoidable, however, that there will be flooding in New Orleans and along some of the gulf coast to the east (and less so to the west.) Direct landfall will cause a catastrophy wherever it occurs.
:(