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From CNN:

New Orleans, Louisiana — The disaster thousands of feet deep in the Gulf of Mexico could be exacerbated by a different type of calamity from the sky above in the coming week — but there’s a promising new development on the oil spill front.

BP said Friday its “ranging” process, by which it sends an electrical current that puts out an electromagnetic field down the well bore, detected Wednesday where the leaking well is in relation to the first relief well, at a depth of 16,275 feet. BP said subsequent ranging runs will be needed to more precisely locate the leaking well and figure out how to best intersect the two.

Drilling and ranging operations will continue over the next few weeks toward the target intercept depth of approximately 18,000 feet. “Kill” operations are expected to begin when the relief well reaches the leaking well. Drilling also continues on the second relief well, which recently measured 10,500 feet deep, the statement said.

Check out our photos of the devastation caused by the oil spill:

It’s unclear if the weather will cooperate with the drilling and cleanup efforts. There is a 70 percent chance that a weather system in the western Caribbean will better organize and form at least a tropical depression in the next 48 hours, the National Hurricane Center said Friday morning.

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