Goodbye Cristobal and Hello Dolly

The weekend turned out half good at Myrtle Beach as Tropical Storm Cristobal stirred up the ocean, dirtied up the surf, clouded up the sky and muddied up the ground on Saturday before departing on Sunday.

In a nutshell, squally showers from Cristobal kissed the Grand Strand before yielding to a warming tropical sky. Now Cris is heading seaward and our attention is turning to his younger sister Dolly.

Last fall, I enjoyed Broadway’s own Beth McVey play Dolly Levi in Hello Dolly right here in Huntington. Dolly was up to her matchmaking self then and now this Monday evening, Tropical Storm Dolly is in a bit of a mischievous frame of mind of her own.

Dolly is slowly gaining strength and showing signs of growing into a hurricane as she leaves the Yucatan of Mexico (where rain squalls have affected vacationers at Cancun and Cozumel) this Monday evening.

Current hurricane model projections take Dolly toward South Texas with a zone from Corpus Christi to Brownsville and South Padre in line for possible hurricane conditions by Wednesday.

As for oil and gasoline prices, the current path of Dolly would stay south of the dense population of oil platforms in the northern Gulf near Port Arthur and south of New Orleans. That would seem to suggest no oil disruption and hence no spike in gas prices.

However, the oil futures have spiked today as a hedge against Dolly wandering farther northward. That hedge could have a minimal impact of gas prices (up a few cents) later this week. Naturally, a sudden turn north would have a more important effect on the price of gasoline. In that regard, Dolly looks to live up to her namesake’s conniving ways.

By the way, Beth, you were great!

Here’s a link to the latest on soon to be Hurricane Dolly.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/