Hurricane Gustav

Pages

Well, it looks like those of us along the Gulf Coast are going to have a pretty crappy Labor Day.

I should get notified today whether I'm being released from work. The plan right now is to evacuate to my parent's house in St. Francisville on Friday evening (pending work schedule changes). Word is that mandatory evacuations may be issued as early as Saturday afternoon. It would be good to get out of town before then.

I hope all of my fellow New Orleanians and Gulf Coast goodjers are able to get out of the path of the storm. Best of luck, and be safe.

Edit: Title change for storm reclassification

Yeah the 10 o'clock update doesn't look good. They're really expecting this thing to pick up speed over the weekend. We're checking the supplies tonight and preparing for the rest of the week. Safe to say the annual Extended Family Labor Day trip is out for the weekend. Hooray for boarding up and bending over! People in the office have spent the past few days mocking Fay. I keep trying to tell them it's bad karma to do that stuff, but they won't listen.

(Not that it has any true bearing on where this storm is headed, but still)

On a side note, if this thing hits NOLA, how much coverage will get juxtaposed with the RNC?

I'm finding this particularly fascinating: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=G...

It updates in real-time.

Whoa. Stay safe, guys.

You are, of course, welcome in Austin... at SoulDaddy's house.

The question is, which is more deadly, the hurricane, or the crocodile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_(crocodile)

Have no fear New Orleans folks for it will surely hit Houston dead on! How do I know? Because it will make land fall DIRECTLY before I purchase my house and it will reduced to a mud puddle with little hardwood sticks and granite counter top chunks.

Mav, if you want the link to work, it's {url=http://etc}word(s) to tie link to{/url}, replacing the {} with [] and "etc" with your URL. Or, you can just get rid of the URL tags altogether, and it'll show up as a link:

http://www.google.com

Pharacon wrote:

Have no fear New Orleans folks for it will surely hit Houston dead on! How do I know? Because it will make land fall DIRECTLY before I purchase my house and it will reduced to a mud puddle with little hardwood sticks and granite counter top chunks.

When I was last in Houston, a hurricane hit, and all that happened were a few on-and-off-ramps got flooded out. Otherwise, it rained.

IMAGE(http://icons-pe.wunderground.com/data/images/at200807_5day.gif)

Looks like we get to sit on the sidelines for this one. Good luck and stay safe.

I expect the storm to run a bit eastward of the main forecast path, making landfall closer towards Mobile (though probabaly a little west of Mobile but within Alabama state lines). Amateur meteorology dude that I am.

This was passed on by a colleague who is a client of the Coastal Weather Research Center in Mobile

Gustav has now turned toward the west and is moving away from Haiti as high pressure builds to the north. Gustav will likely begin to strengthen as it moves away from the mountains of Haiti.

Gustav should move on a path between eastern Cuba and Jamaica, but still may remain close enough to the coast to be disrupted by the mountains in eastern Cuba. By late Thursday, Gustav should be headed westward into the open waters of the Northwest Caribbean Sea. The environment over the Northwest Caribbean should favor strengthening as Gustav moves in the general direction of western Cuba and the Yucatan Channel later this week. A weak ridge of high pressure to the north should mean that the motion of Gustav will be rather slow while it moves south of Cuba over the next few days, but the storm is likely to reach the extreme southeastern/south-central Gulf of Mexico on Saturday.

The storm is somewhat disorganized right now due to the proximity to land and overnight shearing. But, slow strengthening should begin tonight and Thursday. Rather rapid intensification could occur over the Northwest Caribbean. Gustav is likely to become a strong hurricane before reaching the Gulf of Mexico. The waters in the Northwest Caribbean and Gulf are very warm and will easily support a major hurricane. The Gulf of Mexico Loop Current extends northward from the Yucatan Channel and into the south-central Gulf. This loop current contains some of the largest oceanic heat content in the Western Hemisphere; this, as well as a favorable atmospheric environment, makes it likely that Gustav will be a major hurricane in the southern Gulf.
However, as the storm moves north of about 26 degrees north latitude, Gustav will no longer be over the loop current. This, combined with the possibility of increasing wind shear from a nearby upper-level trough, could stop the strengthening process and may even lead to some weakening of Gustav over the northern Gulf.

It now appears that a portion of an upper-level trough will linger this weekend over the northern Gulf Coast which will keep the high pressure ridge there rather weak. The influence of this trough should entice the storm northward toward the north-central Gulf by Sunday and the storm could very easily be approaching the north-central Gulf Coast on Monday.
However, it appears that the storm may begin to slow down as it approaches the coast, due to the re-strengthening of the high pressure ridge to the north. This could easily cause the storm to begin to meander near the coast, and even could force Gustav westward along the northern Gulf coast on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. It is still several days before Gustav likely approaches the northern Gulf; however, at the present time, the scenario above is very possible. It is also possible the storm could move inland on the northern Gulf Coast before it begins to meander. These are issues that need to be watched closely later this week as weather patterns become clearer.

All interests along the northern and northwestern Gulf coast need to pay particular attention to Gustav into next week.

A BLOHW Model will be available around 5:00 pm CDT this afternoon.

Farscry wrote:

I expect the storm to run a bit eastward of the main forecast path, making landfall closer towards Mobile (though probabaly a little west of Mobile but within Alabama state lines). Amateur meteorology dude that I am. :D

Hopefully so.

We could use the rain.

I like to go right to the National Hurricane Center's website for info.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

Their graphics aren't the flashiest, but all of the info is straight from the horse's mouth. The only thing they're missing that I'd like to see is an overlay of the forecast tracks from the different models.

For satellite images, I like the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/

I used to have a script that would pull the latest GOES east satellite image and update it as my background every 15 minutes.

I can't believe I'm having to go through this again, almost 3 years to the freaking day! Katrina hit on 08/29 and this looks like the 31st. I swear, I may just move to China. I hear the fried insects are delicious this time of year.

Listening to Gov. Jindal on WWL.com

Edit: Whoops. That was supposed to go to Twitter. LOL@myself.

divorced wrote:

I can't believe I'm having to go through this again, almost 3 years to the freaking day! Katrina hit on 08/29 and this looks like the 31st. I swear, I may just move to China. I hear the fried insects are delicious this time of year.

China has had several Typhoons already this year. Not a whole lot better.

In Mississippi, I hear they were going to have a ceremony marking the 3rd anniversary of Katrina somewhere along the coast, and part of the ceremony was some building built to be hurricane proof. Well, it might get a very quick test. Also, with all the rain the SE got from Fay, the ground is saturated, meaning a second strong hit could do tremendous damage to the timber industry (whatever is still around). Anything not knocked down by Katrina could be flattened by a hurricane hitting an already saturated ground.

Hey, interesting stuff Buzz. I suspect they're more correct than me by far. I was just tossing my amateur opinion out there.

I do hope the storm weakens as it hits the northern Gulf waters.

sheared wrote:
divorced wrote:

I can't believe I'm having to go through this again, almost 3 years to the freaking day! Katrina hit on 08/29 and this looks like the 31st. I swear, I may just move to China. I hear the fried insects are delicious this time of year.

China has had several Typhoons already this year. Not a whole lot better.

In Mississippi, I hear they were going to have a ceremony marking the 3rd anniversary of Katrina somewhere along the coast, and part of the ceremony was some building built to be hurricane proof. Well, it might get a very quick test. Also, with all the rain the SE got from Fay, the ground is saturated, meaning a second strong hit could do tremendous damage to the timber industry (whatever is still around). Anything not knocked down by Katrina could be flattened by a hurricane hitting an already saturated ground.

A number of my best friends are just now getting their lives back to normal 3 years later. If we get hit majorly by Gustav, it will be beyond devastating. They have already announced there are no mass shelters for New Orleans like there were for Katrina. Nobody will be staying in the Superdome. If you decide to stay, it is at your own peril. I expect the death toll would be huge among the poorer sections of the population as most do not have the resources to up and leave town.

I don't know what I will do yet. Gonna wait another day or so and see if this thing looks like it will head west or east. I don't wish ill on anyone else, but man do I hope this thing goes somewhere else.

Farscry wrote:

Hey, interesting stuff Buzz. I suspect they're more correct than me by far. I was just tossing my amateur opinion out there.

I do hope the storm weakens as it hits the northern Gulf waters.

I was just throwing it out there Fars. Thought it might back you up or something like that. That being said, this thing running down the Bama state line through Mobile County is a nightmare scenario for me, so I REALLY hope you're wrong.

For some reason, this thing feels like Ivan. Wishful thinking?

Edit: Nope, here's Ivan at roughly the same point on the map.

And here's Gustav currently.

Gustav obviously has more of a westward track.

Then again, if you look at the full Ivan archive, you'll see that, at a similar point on the map, he kept heading west though they kept expecting him to turn north. I wonder how much better they've gotten in the last 4 years.

Edit: Changed embedded images to links.

Lovely - I'll be flying into NOLA tomorrow and (was planning) on staying until Tuesday. Looks like it'll be more of an eventful trip then I thought.

That just means that it's lining up on NOLA. He'll turn back east. They always hook east.

And if it doesn't, a major storm in the Atchafalaya is actually much worse, from a storm surge perspective, for the "west" (south) side of the river. You know, the side that actually stayed mostly dry last time. (Also, the side where my mom lives in the home I grew up in.)

Edit: I know I said they always hook but just to make sure I don't spread misinformation, Texas isn't out of the realm of possibility.
IMAGE(http://icons.wunderground.com/data/images/at200807_model.gif)
Note: This graphic will probably auto-update so it may no longer be relevant if you're looking at it long after I posted.

I was looking at the Gustav archive based on your earlier link, Grumpy. This thing isn't quite doing what they've expected so far (do they ever?). There's still quite a bit of time before we really know where it's going. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if it made landfall later in the week.

The archive link I posted was for Ivan.

The Gustav archive shows, IMHO, that Gustav has been tracking roughly as they expect.

Of course this (south of Cuba) is about the place on the map where Ivan got all unpredictable, too.

Grumpicus wrote:

The archive link I posted was for Ivan.

The Gustav archive shows, IMHO, that Gustav has been tracking roughly as they expect.

Of course this (south of Cuba) is about the place on the map where Ivan got all unpredictable, too.

I know. I hunted down the Gustav archive based on what you'd shown with Ivan. I don't think they were generally predicting it to go south of Jamaica, aside from an odd computer model that still had it swinging over to the Yucatan. In addition, it was predicted to be in the northern Gulf by Sunday earlier in the week, and that's already slid to Tuesday after a couple of days. I was just trying to point out that there's still quite a bit of water for this storm to cover before any of us panic.

Gustav took a jog south overnight, and will now pass south of Jamaica. This puts it on a more westerly course. The latest forecast also shows the storm spending more time in the gulf and strengthening to a Cat 3 before landfall. Landfall is now showing Tuesday morning somewhere along the LA Gulf Coast, west of the Atchafalaya Basin.

The mad rush for supplies has already started in Lafayette. I went to the grocery last night to get a few non perishables and every basket was filled with water and batteries. Lines at the pump are also heavier than usual. My current thinking is if our local impact is at Rita levels or below, we stay, otherwise, meep meep zip tang!

buzzvang wrote:
Grumpicus wrote:

The archive link I posted was for Ivan.

The Gustav archive shows, IMHO, that Gustav has been tracking roughly as they expect.

Of course this (south of Cuba) is about the place on the map where Ivan got all unpredictable, too.

I know. I hunted down the Gustav archive based on what you'd shown with Ivan. I don't think they were generally predicting it to go south of Jamaica, aside from an odd computer model that still had it swinging over to the Yucatan. In addition, it was predicted to be in the northern Gulf by Sunday earlier in the week, and that's already slid to Tuesday after a couple of days. I was just trying to point out that there's still quite a bit of water for this storm to cover before any of us panic.

Well, the storm didn't actually track to the south, but rather the center reformed to the south overnight, which wasn't expected. The most recent update shows the storm coming ashore right on top of Morgan City at 8 AM on Tuesday. It's still not looking good.

On the plus side, I've been released from work. Still waiting to hear about my wife, but odds are she will have to stay through Saturday.

Yeah, looking this morning the track seems a bit more westward overall, but honestly, until the storm gets into the Gulf it'll be hard to say. The more time it spends over land if it crosses Cuba, the more difficult it'll be to predict what track it'll take until it gets into the Gulf.

Here's to hoping for a freak dissipation over Cuba that results in no hurricane hitting the Gulf coast! They really don't need more storms anywhere along that coastline anytime soon after the last four years.

From a gallows-humor perspective, if it were to hit the MS coast, at least there wouldn't be that much for it to destroy. But you're right Fars, the Delta, NOLA, and the Coast could all use a few more years before they take one in the mouth again. Still, even if this thing dissipates, there's Hanna in the Atlantic and another couple coming off Africa that could take its place. Hooray for September!

Pages