Its Name Is Earl

The National Weather Service reported earlier today that Hurricane Earl is now a Category 4 hurricane and some news stories on the storm - which is on an indeterminate track toward the American East Coast - could hit anywhere between North Carolina and Maine and possibly give the New York City area a lashing reminiscent of the 1938 hurricane that famously destroyed Providence, Rhode Island. It's been that long since the Northeast has had to deal with a tropical storm of Katrina-size proportions.

This is bad enough news for those of us with the lingering bad memories of the February blizzards earlier this year, not to mention the March nor'easter that turned much of New Jersey into an inland sea. The laws of averages suggest that the greater New York area can't possibly go through the same kind of adverse weather twice in one year, but of course nor'easters and hurricanes are in fact two different kinds of storms . . . only with the same nasty effects.

Hurricane Earl is expected to be within range of the Northeast by Thursday night of Friday. A likely scenario has Earl staying out at sea and not affecting land terribly, but a hit - direct or indirect - is not out of the question just yet. Friday's forecast for the New York area, as of this writing, calls for a 40 percent chance of showers.

We're going to get hit, I know it.

The blizzards we got this past winter were originally forecast to be snow showers.