The BP oil slick could hit the east coast in weeks and will likely soon spread across thousands of miles of Atlantic shoreline, government scientists reported Thursday.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research released a disturbing computer animation showing tendrils of oil coiling like snake in the Gulf of Mexico, winding around Key West into the Gulf Stream and then shooting north into the Atlantic and spreading east towards Europe.

Scientists at the federally funded center stressed their animation was only one scenario of what might happen.

“This is not a forecast, but rather, it illustrates a likely dispersal pathway of the oil for roughly four months following the spill,” the agency said in a statement.

But it is a sobering – and dire – warning to the East Coast beaches that they are likely to share the fate of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida’s panhandle.

“I’ve had a lot of people ask me, ‘Will the oil reach Florida?’” says NCAR scientist Synte Peacock, who worked on the study. “Actually, our best knowledge says the scope of this environmental disaster is likely to reach far beyond Florida, with impacts that have yet to be understood.”

BP’s latest effort to divert some of the millions of gallons of crude flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from the blown-out well was not going well.

BP managed to cut through a broken pipe with giant underwater shears after a diamond-tipped saw got stuck, but the cut was jagged. Placing a cap over the gusher will now be more challenging, said Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen.

The cap will be lowered later Thursday, and only then will it become clear how much oil BP might be able to siphon to a tanker on the surface.

The irregular cut means the cap won’t fit as snugly as officials had hoped, suggesting much of the oil will keep leaking into the sea.

“We’ll have to see when we get the containment cap on it just how effective it is,” Allen said.

(Source: NY Daily News)