This whole oil spill thing gets worse all the time, and they just noticed some “huge oil plumes“.

What I want to know is: What is the worst case scenario here? What is the maximum amount of oil which can possibly spill into the Gulf from this? So far, I’ve found this:

“The spill, currently spewing 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) of sweet crude oil into the Gulf every day, could grow up to 12 times the rate of current low-end estimates.Rates that high would cause an already disastrous scenario to become a truly catastrophic event.”

 But I’m having trouble figuring out what that means, or what the difference is between a disaster and a catastrophe.