Harvey appears to be all that was promised and then some, and accordingly we are seeing the market reactions one would expect. September contract RBOB gasoline prices are up 2-3% on refinery outages while October crude prices are down over 3% as there are far fewer open refineries to process it. Crack spreads continue to balloon, as the storm continues to be far more of a refinery disruption story than any kind of production story. Natural gas prices have found a bit of support today but are up just less than a percent as production disruptions are not seen being enough to significantly move the market.

Still, impacts from Harvey are not yet done. NOAA and the Weather Prediction Center predict another 1-2 feet of rain being possible across parts of the Gulf Coast through the end of the week, which will continue to exacerbate flood issues.

Flooding rains look to move a bit further east through the week and get into much of Louisiana as well, which could allow for additional disruptions beyond what we have already seen over the weekend.

Harvey is now re-emerging back over the Gulf of Mexico where it will briefly stall before trending back towards Texas, as seen on the model spread below.

Most guidance has the center of Harvey remaining west of Louisiana and instead moving towards Houston, but rain will continue on the eastern flank of the storm which is why such impressive rainfall amounts are still expected all the way to New Orleans.

As the storm sits over the Gulf of Mexico the next couple of days it could begin to slowly re-strengthen, though any strengthening does not look to be significant. For now almost all model guidance keeps the storm from re-strengthening to hurricane strength, and a lot of guidance keeps it as just a weak tropical storm, as seen below courtesy of Tropical Tidbits.

Thus the main impact we expect will continue to be the flooding rain across the region, and not any serious or sustained wind damage (though if the storm strengthens back to a strong tropical storm there could still be some power outage issues).