Just realized this.

Slap on barkskin and you're channeled spells cant be interrupted. Solves the hurricane problem that people kept wondering about!

Main question will be how long does it last? is there a cooldown? how much cast time does it add to spells?

But I suspect this is the concept design of it, since we already had nature's focus and imp root and imp tranquility. I'm sure they will revise all of those if barkskin has long duration. If it's a short burst spell (comparable to priest fade) then they may only need to rethink tranquility's talents.

Pity hurricane isn't worth the talent points with or without the channelling. Good for a quick tranquility moment though, also stops the need for imp roots.

barkskin also allows the removal for a few restoration talents..yay!

I don't think so, the spell discription on the patch notes reads:
New Spell: Barkskin (available at level 44) - The druid's skin becomes as tough as bark. Physical damage taken is reduced. While protected, taking damage will not cause spellcasting delays, but non-instant spells take longer to cast and melee combat is slowed.
Hurricane and Tranquility are instant cast spells that are channeled. The channeling is not the same as spell casting.
Blizzard changed Hurricane to a channeled spell for what they consider to be valid reasons, and in the Druid feedback that Cay posted on the forumns she stated that while they would be watching the spell they were not intending to make any changes to it at this time.
I'm sure that plenty will be testing it out on patch day but I won't hold my breath that it will change those two spells at all.

As far as I can tell channeling is just like casting. It's not the damage that interrupts the spell, its the physical contact causing spell delay. That is, if you have sw:p cast on you and start channeling tranquility, the spell doesn't stop on the first dmg tick of swp. It gets interrupted by the same things that would normally cause a delay on your spellcasting.

I guess we'll see when the patch comes out, but I would not be at all surprised if this is Blizz's answer to hurricane complaints.

I expect barkskin to be like 15s duration with 1min cooldown, so that it could theoretically replace nature's focus and imp root, but it will not be as good as either talent.

Of course Caydiem has said its primary purpose is to help us deal w aggro while healing, but hopefully its doubling as a way to get hurricane off for those poor balance druids.

If it's physical contact that causes interruptions, then Barkskin won't make a difference. Based on its description, it's a mitigation-type spell, not avoidance. But it's all conjecture until some druid comes forward from test =)