Update: Hurricane* Gustav: Sights set on the Gulf

I put an asterisk in the name because I believe it wont be long, maybe the next update or two, before it's reached Hurricane Status.
I'm waiting for the "Chinas Firing up their weather machine" posts

Gustav could be "the one" this year. Some are calling it Fays twin because of where its formed but the similarities stop there.
Fay was indecisive and unpredictable and very unorganized (just like a real woman huh?) j/k ladies
Even when she became a hurricane she really never had a defined eye wall structure or or a much of a center of circulation.
I think Gustav will get his act together much quicker , its already developing its center of circulation and

Gustav is now starting to build an eyewall of heavy thunderstorms around the cloud-free center.

We will know more at 2 am EST, when a Hurricane Hunter plane will be in the storm and reporting back to us.
However, they expect him to hit Haiti as a high Cat 1 hurricane, which is winds up to 90 mph before Haiti's Mountainous terrain knocks it back down to TS strength.
After he gets back over water, the wind shear is expected to drop to between 0 and 10 kts, that along with other favorable conditions, that he should encounters should allow Gustav to undergo a rapid intensification

Here's the animated radar from wunderground, Im not sure if the update on the site is refleced on here but w'ell find out soon enough

As far as the direction that Gustav will take, the models really werent on the same page, some of them are having him being west of The Keys, as a Cat 1 or 2 storm, then turn a little north, taking it further into the Gulf of Mexico, while two other models have the steering trough not being strong enough and they are calling for him to take a sharp left, into the Yucatan Peninsula.
Take a look for yourself and see what you think.
FYI, im not sure if these model ipegs keep the same name when the updated ones are added, in other words, the model paths you see now, on this site may be updated here when they update them there, which is good.

Tropical Storm Gustav intensified rapidly from a mere disturbance to a strong tropical storm in just a few short hours. At 1:33 pm EDT, an Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft measured a surface pressure of 996 mb at 15.8N, 70.5W, at the center of a closed circulation. Top winds at the aircraft's flight level of 2200 feet were hurricane force, 74 mph. Top winds measured at the surface by the SFMR instrument were 60 mph, on the southeast side of the storm. Large regions of winds in excess of tropical storm force (39 mph) were measured on both the northwest and southeast sides of the storm. Visible satellite loops show a steadily increase in the intensity and areal coverage of Gustav's heavy thunderstorm activity. A cloud-free center (not a true eye) formed late this morning, and Gustav is now starting to build an eyewall of heavy thunderstorms around the cloud-free center. Gustav has an impressive spiral band to its north, and this band has now moved ashore over the southern Dominican Republic, as seen on Punta Cana radar. These rains have also spread to Puerto Rico, as seen on Puerto Rico radar. The Hurricane Hunters have left Gustav, and a new aircraft is scheduled to be in the storm by 2 am Tuesday.

Wunderground

National Hurricane Center

National Data Buoy Center

[edit on 8/25/2008 by Kr0n0s]
[Mod edit to update thread title]

[edit on 8/26/2008 by yeahright]

Yeah i am watching it closely also. I live in South Florida, so its definitely in my interest.

Here is the latest "Cone of Doom", as many South Floridians call it.





[edit on 25-8-2008 by xmaddness]

[edit on 25-8-2008 by xmaddness]

Hey, no need to visit all of those so-called "weather sites" for your information, just visit my thread, its a one stop shop for all of the up-to-date information concerning Gustav, of course I "borrow" the information from their website to use on here,with proper credit given of course.
Also, just so you know and I dont get 4000 U2U's, I was kidding about coming here instead of the weather sites for news on the Hurricane.
Always rely on the National Hurricane Center (NHC) for your true and current up to date news on something as important and dangerous as a Hurricane.

Anyway, it is just as I thought and what I was hoping would happen, two of the maps that I posted, the one in the middle, Computer Models and the last one, Current Storm conditions, are both dynamic.
All that means is when the weather sites make an update to the map, it also updates on here, so the two lower maps in the OP will always have the most recent updates on them.
Im not so sure about the top one, which is the IR Map but I will find out.
Im going to try and find a good IR loop to put in here, one that will stay updated.
If I do, I will put it back in the OP, that way it will keep them together and not spread throughout the thread.

Thanks Kronos, I will be keeping an eye on your thread. I live in south Florida and it seems no matter what this storm does I will be affected. I hope it doesn't reach it's full potential. This one could be bad.

Well, as predicted we now have Hurricane Gustav!

Source

Gustav Now a Hurricane Tom Moore, and Mark Avery, Lead Meteorologists, The Weather Channel 4:00 a.m. ET 8/26/2008 A tropical depression strengthened rapidly in the central Caribbean Sea on Tuesday, and became Tropical Storm Gustav Tuesday afternoon. The Hurricane Hunters found 80 mile per hour winds during a recon mission shortly after 2 am Tuesday, making Gustav a hurricane.

Also, if you'll notice on the Computer Model Charts in the first post, theyve shifted the predicted track a little more to the South of the original track.
This means that instead of skirting or even crossing Cuba, into the Florida Straits, Gustav could be track more to the South of Cuba.
This could give it more time over water and more time over water means more time to intensify into a stronger hurricane as it tracks directly into the Gulf of Mexico.

Here is a 5 day forecast track cone, i believe the link to this was posted by xmadness a few hours ago.






This is also a good map from the weatherchannel.com hurricane watch page.





[edit on 8/26/2008 by Kr0n0s]

There seems to be a lot going on in the tropics. I hope this doesn't turn into a
2004 Florida Hurricane party. www.cyclonejim.com...

We have enough problems in Florida right now! We don't need anymore. The weather coming off of Africa lately reminds me of 2004.

Sorry Florida but your issues take a backseat right now, of course Id never wish a strike on anybody but right now what this Nation CANT take is a hit
anywhere in the Gulf.
If/When that happens my friends, we will begin to see 5-7.00 gas within the first few days of landfall and who knows after that.

I agree, Gustav is the least of Florida's problems as far as a direct hit, but there is a lot going on in the tropics and Florida can't afford to withstand the effects of a hurricane in any state. Imo Florida is experiencing an economic crisis without natural disasters. Gas prices are just an inconvenience compared to unemployment and foreclosures in Florida. I agree that the northern gulf states have more to worry about when it comes to Gustav, but like I said we are already in the hole and I feel like Gustav is being followed by far worse weather. I hope I am wrong.

They are saying this could be an extremely dangerous storm, and it looks like most of the predictions have it going south of Cuba (staying over water) and going straight into the Gulf.

I have a bad feeling about this one, looks like next week is going to be a rough week for us along the Gulf, pray this thing doesn't get to strong or else gas prices are going to go sky high.

Update on the storm:

Hurricane Gustav bound for Haiti

MIAMI, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Rapidly strengthening Hurricane Gustav was forecast to hit Haiti Tuesday with winds of at least 85 mph before bearing down on Cuba.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said at 5 a.m., Gustav was centered about 100 miles south-southeast of Port au Prince, Haiti, and about 300 miles southeast of Guantanamo, Cuba.

The system that developed Monday from a tropical depression to a Category 1 hurricane was moving northwest near 9 mph, which forecasters said would lead it to southwestern Haiti Tuesday afternoon and then eastern Cuba on Wednesday.

Well it strengthened considerably overnight and there nothing to expect it will slow down anytime soon, this has a GoM storm written all over it and its projected to be a Category 3 storm (winds up to 130mph) by the time it enters the mouth of the Gulf.
So whos ready to pay double at the Gas Pumps? I would suggest stocking up now, while you can because it will be ridiculous next week.
The models and maps in the first post have been updated whenever the NHC updates them, so they should be accurate throughout this event.
Heres is the lastest 5 day projection for Gustav, im in a bit of a hurry this morning, i have to be somewhere in an hour or so.

Even if it doesn't strengthen, which it will, if it goes anywhere east of LA there will be massive flooding. Fay is soaking everyone. Same thing in TX from the one a few weeks ago, right? And of course no one wants to even think of the possibility of N.O.

And the Gulf is just hot soup ready to boil as Fay really didn't sap the water temperatures at all.

Florida is SOAKED as it is...


Landfall of another tropical strom will DESTROY much of the state...


lets just this one just spins out into the atlantic, instead of sitting in the Gulf and Streanghthing for days...



This could hit DURING the RNC...

What would they do?

I searched to see if there was a Gustav thread yet and Viola! there was. This one looks to be entering the gulf the way katrina did with out being hampered by land fall too much at least according to the forcasted path. I would make preliminary plans and take preliminary precautions like stock up on plywood if I lived down there.

There hasnt really been any big updates since earlier this morning, the windspeed and the track havent really changed at all.
After reading stik's post above, i re-read Dr Masters report that he wrote at the wunderground site this morning and two statements he made stood out, that I didnt see this morning because of being in a hurry.
Heres the first one:

The other models predict that this trough will be strong enough to turn Gustav northward, and foresee a landfall on the Gulf Coast between the Florida Panhandle and Texas border 6-8 days from now. The GFDL is the fastest, bringing Gustav to New Orleans on Sunday afternoon. This is a plausible forecast, but at this point, virtually any point along the Gulf Coast has a roughly equal chance of a direct hit by Gustav.

I really wasnt expecting NOLA to even be in the picture last night but his second comment, I was expecting all along..

Once in the Gulf of Mexico, Gustav is likely to intensify into a major Category 3 or higher storm. I give a 60% chance that Gustav will cause significant disruption to the oil and gas industry in the Gulf.

So when I told people to stock up on fuel, I wasnt kidding

Right now though, as far as im concerned, its all up in the air, everything depends on something else to happen before it can happen and so on.

Here is the source for the comments I quoted above, his next update probably wont be for another few hours.

Wunderground

Gustav's passage over the mountainous terrain of Haiti caused him quite a few problems, first of all it knocked his wind speed down from 90 mph to 70 mph, which has put him back down to Tropical Storm strength, at least temporarily.
He also came out of it looking a little ragged and elongated but now that hes back over land he should regain his shape and should begin to re-intensify and his eye should re-appear very soon as well.
It seems that all of the track models are in agreement, at least for the time being, as they all have Gustav entering the Gulf between Cuba and the Yucatan as a Category 3+ Hurricane and tracking towards Louisiana.
In fact, the GFDL model has Gustav striking Louisiana as a Cat 3 or low Cat 4 on Sunday and one of the models is predicting a Texas landfal sometime next week.

The latest 12Z (8 am EDT) model runs continue to be in good agreement on the 1-3 day track of Gustav, and we can be confident that Gustav will turn west and pass south of Cuba after leaving Haiti. The trough of low pressure currently exiting the U.S. East Coast and pulling Gustav northwest is expected to move off to the east, allowing a ridge of high pressure to build in and force Gustav due west or slightly south of due west. After three days, there is more divergence in the models. The NOGAPS model no longer foresees landfall on Mexico's Yucatan, and now takes Gustav to a final landfall in the Florida Panhandle on Monday.
The ECMWF is now the only model predicting a landfall in the Yucatan. This model predicts a second landfall in Texas. The GFDL is a little slower than its previous run, but still forecasts a Category 3/4 hurricane hitting Louisiana on Sunday evening. The UKMET prefers a Texas landfall. The GFS is not much help--it dissipates Gustav.
The final landfall location of Gustav depends on the strength and speed of a trough of low pressure forecast to move across the Midwest U.S. late this week. At present, there is no way to guess which location in the Gulf of Mexico is the most likely. Keep in mind that the cone of uncertainty is correct only about 2/3 of the time--1/3 of the time, we can expect the storm's position to be in error by more than what the cone of uncertainty suggests.

In this paragraph Dr. Masters talks about a condition thats present between Gustav and Louisiana called a "loop current eddy", the last time this condition was present in the Gulf was in 04 near Florida and again in 05 in about the same place that it is now.
This is what allowed such rapid intensification for Charley in 04 and Katrina and Rita in 05.

Gustav's intensification potential in the Gulf of Mexico As we saw in 2005 with Katrina and Rita, the large amounts of deep, warm water brought into the Gulf of Mexico by the Loop Current can help intensify hurricanes to Category 5 intensity. As explained in my Loop Current tutorial, the Loop Current is an ocean current that transports warm Caribbean water through the Yucatan Channel between Cuba and Mexico.
The current flows northward into the Gulf of Mexico, then loops southeastward through the Florida Keys. The Loop Current commonly bulges out in the northern Gulf of Mexico and sometimes will shed a clockwise rotating ring of warm water that separates from the main current. This ring of warm water slowly drifts west-southwestward towards Texas or Mexico at about 3-5 km per day. This feature is called a "Loop Current Ring", "Loop Current Eddy", or "Warm Core Ring", and can provide a key source of energy to fuel rapid intensification of hurricanes that cross the Gulf. The Loop Current itself can also fuel rapid intensification, such as happened with Hurricane Charley in 2004. When a Loop Current Eddy breaks off in the Gulf of Mexico at the height of hurricane season, it can lead to a dangerous situation where a vast reservoir of energy is available to any hurricane that might cross over.
This occurred in 2005, when a Loop Current Eddy separated in July, just before Hurricane Katrina passed over and "bombed" into a Category 5 hurricane. The eddy remained in the Gulf and slowly drifted westward during September. Hurricane Rita passed over the same Loop Current Eddy three weeks after Katrina, and also explosively deepened to a Category 5 storm. This year, we had another Loop Current Eddy break off in July. This eddy is now positioned due south of New Orleans (Figure 2), and this eddy has similar levels of heat energy to the 2005 eddy that powered Katrina and Rita.
Should Gustav pass over or just to the left of this eddy, we can expect the storm to significantly intensify. There is also a weaker eddy present in the western Gulf; this eddy broke off from the Loop Current in April, and is much cooler then the eddy that broke off in July. Should Gustav pass over the April eddy, it shouldn't make much difference.

Weather Underground

This storm is making me really nervous. I live in Baton Rouge and I work in the New Orleans area... This week is the third anniversary of Katrina, and we are just not ready for something like that to happen again.

My parents are just now almost done repairing their house from that one. In fact, I think they were anticipating having the last few baseboards in place this weekend. Maybe they should hold off on that...

Thanks for providing so much information in one thread!

I think I'll probably get another day off out of this one. Hopefully it will miss us, but I sure wouldn't mind Parish government (and the courthouse) being closed for a day or so. Give me time to catch up on my work, or time to catch up on playing with my pets.

Excellent thread, Kr0n0s!

I have a bad feeling about Gustav. All the models have him going into the GoM which is a very bad thing. Some models have him at a Cat 3 when he hits the GoM, which is a very, very, VERY bad thing. If he hits Cat 2 or 3 before reaching the hotter Gulf waters, he'll blow up plenty of time before landfall. As things stand now, he looks favorable for a Cat 3 or better landfall.
He's back over water now so he'll pick up. Windfield is wider now too, which isn't a great sign.

We're still too far out to know for sure, but several models are putting Gustav near NOLA for landfall....that would be disastrous.


East Coasters be ready for TD 95L. Some models have that one strengthening rapidly into 'cane status and skirting the coast from the Carolinas to New England.

NOLA.com

If the storm continues to head toward Louisiana, the governor on Thursday would exercise state contracts for up to 700 buses to assist with evacuations.

Assisted evacuations could begin as early as Friday and evacuations from hospitals and medical care facilities would begin Saturday. Evacuations by rail also could begin Saturday.

Contra-flow, in which all lanes of major highways would direct traffic away from the storm impact area, could begin Saturday or very early Sunday, Jindal said.

"These are the timetables as we see them now," Jindal said. "We all hope this will be a false alarm."

NOLA is preparing.

IMO everyone from the LA/TX border to the FL panhandle should be reviewing their evac plans, making sure to have emergency supplies on hand, and gathering important documents just in case. More models are converging to the LA/MS coastlines for landfall in ~7 days. The conditions are, pardon the term, perfect for Gustav to develop into a major storm and do some serious damage to the Gulf Coast.

Right now general thought is somewhere from LA to the FL panhandle is the most likely point of landfall. TX remains possible but not as likely.

We should have updates in about 45 minutes.