Hurricane Harvey is officially a Category 4 storm with winds of 130 mph, per the National Hurricane Center, setting the stage for Harvey to become the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States in over a decade.
As of 7 p.m. ET, Harvey was 45 miles east of Corpus Christi, and moving northwest at just 8 mph with landfall expected sometime overnight. Corpus Christi had "strongly [encouraged]" its residents to evacuate as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared that the storm would be a "very major disaster" for his state during an afternoon press conference.
Harvey is expected to stall out on the Texas coast for days, potentially bringing feet of rain.
The National Hurricane Center's forecast: "Harvey is expected to produce total rain accumulations of 15 to 30 inches and isolated maximum amounts of 40 inches over the middle and upper Texas coast...Rainfall of this magnitude will cause catastrophic and life-threatening flooding."
Hurricane Harvey, expected to make landfall this weekend over southeast Texas, could cause gas prices to surge due to the oil and natural gas infrastructure in the region, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The U.S. Gulf of Mexico accounts for about 20% of U.S. crude oil production. Texas accounts for about a quarter of U.S. natural gas production. Some refineries are expected to shut down temporarily and many oil and natural gas operators have already evacuated.
An increase of 5 to 15 cents per gallon is most likely but could increase by as much as 25 cents, Oil Price Information Service analyst Tom Kloza told the AP.
Flashback: Take it from Gustav, Ike, and Isaac — they on average shut down more than one million barrels per day of crude oil production and more than 3 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas production, as well as pipeline and refining capacity.
Why it matters: Hurricane Harvey is expected to wallop the Texas Coast, lingering through the weekend and bringing heavy rains and catastrophic flooding. Current forecasts present a possibility of the storm returning to the Gulf and then heading to Houston — the heart of America's petrochemical industry.
