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What has changed so much in just three weeks? Inflation in Europe has picked up and is now above the range the European Central Bank has said it will tolerate. There’s a good chance the bank will raise short-term interest rates to 4.25% from 4% when it meets Thursday.

With U.S. interest rates on hold or headed lower, the result would be another big boost to the euro, another hit to the dollar, a continued move away from the U.S. dollar by central banks in Asia, Russia and the Middle East, and higher prices for gold and, more importantly, oil.

That’s a lot of fallout from just one quarter-point increase, but the global economy and financial markets are so precariously balanced that any increase in wind velocity can cause massive damage.

So just how good a chance is the “good chance” that the European Central Bank will raise interest rates Thursday?

Here’s the situation the bank faces. You be the judge.

Inflation on the uptick

Inflation jumped to 3.3% in Germany, the European Union’s biggest economy, in October. That has led economists to raise their estimates for inflation for the European Union as a whole to 3%. Before the data from Germany, the consensus forecast for EU inflation stood at 2.7%.

Even 2.7% would have been worrisome: It would have been a slight advance from October’s 2.6% and left the trend headed uncomfortably higher.

And the 3% inflation figure isn’t an isolated number. Other inflation indicators are pointing upward, too. Money-supply growth, which the bank uses to judge the likelihood of future inflation, has been running way above the bank’s target of 4.5%. The bank calculates a 4.5% level of growth in the money supply is not inflationary.