Good news on the oil front with this hurricane. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=alm9QMf4O7e0&refer=home It fell $2 from yesterday's close, but $5 from the highs before IEA news release.
Tropical storm Gustav has departed Jamaica and the Island nation seems none less for the wear. Preliminary news reports indicate that Jamaica suffered no major damage or injuries from said passage. Dr. Masters blog Here is the current five day forecast.. please note that the NHC now has Gustav slowing before landfall, AND that it is to the west of NOLA.. (unlike the GFDL model which is still pinned on Mobile Bay) this could be aweful for the Big Easy.. Let this thing have time to pack the water against the shore and it will be catastrophic. On Hanna... I will create a Hanna thread if I think anything important changes, but at this time, to me, Gustav is the immediate threat to life. Gustav will be ashore before it is known what Hanna will do.... it "could" screw up our home opener... Anyway, here is the current NHC five day forecast. The fall back to tropical storm is the expected shear the Doctor Masters discusses. Everything agrees at this time that this storm will eventually pass by Florida.. whether under or through is uncertain, as is the strength, but it is coming west eventually... Here is the current 5 day forecast track for Hanna.
being on the eastern edge of this thing is the next worst thing to being in the direct path? Looks like those on the eastern edge get the biggest storm surges from the way the storm spins
Thats the way it always works for some reason. East of the storm is normally where all the tornadoes and strong storms form as well.
Models are guessing that as well http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at200808_model.html#a_topad
That all depends on the direction the storm intersects the land. For instance, the 10 ft. storm surge felt by NOLA during Katrina was pushed into NOLA by an east wind from the northern quadrant of the storm. Mississippi got the "north" wind from the E quadrant and it was a 30 feet surge. Double whammy because of geography. The ticket is "onshore" winds, if you have that, you can have have surge. If it is perpendicular to said shore, it is worse, and if the slope of the sea bottom coming ashore is shallow even worse. Packed into a bay or river it can act like a tsunami.. a veritible wall of water. Our local weather guy did a demonstration a couple years back that illustrated the differences between deep and shallow sea bottoms close to shore. He filled a garbage can with water, turned over the lid and did the same. He put a fan on the can and sped it up.. the water reached the edge of the can and went down, recycling back to the wind. When he did the same thing to the shallow lid, the water poured over the opposite side.. because the water could not go down, it went "ashore" It was a perfect "storm surge for dummies" demonstration...prolly why "I" liked it so much. IF Gustav slows as currently forecast just before landfall the surge will be terribly destructive.. and probably a killer, because some just wont leave. When you view a storms windfield remember it's direction and speed of travel. This will add speed to one side, and subtract it from the opposite.
welp..wish us luck as i find out saturday if we are getting the heck out of dodge or if we need to buy floaties. just about all the gas stations in lake charles are out of gas but there's still some in sulphur(im prepared on the gas front). looks like if we leave we go up to shreveport. schools here just closed till next thursday. i hope i can get some plywood as i tried a couple days ago and couldnt. you know as far as the gas stations running out so soon one would think the best decicsion would be to have at least one full tanker at every station already instead of waiting till they are out but thats our great leaders of louisiana. i coasted into a station today and all they had left was supreme and there wasn't much of that. good luck to everyone else who is in the path.
Hurricane Gustav Is quickly gathering strength with a drop of 3mb in less than two hours.. 11mb since it cleared Jamaica. Doc Masters new blog is out and it is scary. Doctor Jeff Masters hurricane blog This COULD be great news for wind damage, but the close proximity could be terrible. Here is the the HWRF forecast.. I cannot get it to animate here sooo 12z 8 29 2008 HWRF animation page some individual forecast points; 54 hours out, max windspeed.. 190 mph... note the sea surface temp box lower left.. watch it as the storm stalls, you will see it reflect the storm pulling up cooler water. at plus 60 hours the windfield becomes onshore to the east side of NOLA. The same side Katrina packed with 10 ft surge, with 15ft in a couple spots. By 72 hrs, tropical storm force winds are starting to come ashore at 90 hours the windfield is still packing the same area of east NOLA.. 30 hours worth. It is also bringing hurricane force winds to the city, which will last more than 12 hours by this model Finally leaving shore 30 hours later.. it still is going to hit Texas.. the model just doesn't run that far yet.
Not to overdue it, but I've got to say cnc66, I greatly, greatly, appreciate your weather updates. They have been invaluable to me, since Fay to now, and hopefully until hurricane season is over. I can't thank you enough for keeping us informed about such important things. Thank you.
I'm evacuating to Memphis tomorrow around 10:00AM. Ms. Gardenhead wants to leave at 8:00 AM, but I got my fantasy football draft scheduled for 9:00 AM. Gustav is gonna mess a lot of stuff up, but he ain't gonna mess up my entire fantasy football season!
Finascious, my gumba brother, thank you for the very kind words.. sometimes I wonder if there is any interest past three or four guys.. you made my morning, thanks. Garden.. brother.. please take my prayers and concern with you. I will be worrying about you too. Please take care and be safe.. if any of you "evacuees" want a contact number, someone you can call here and say you are OK.. and get the latest Dolphin news while you are without the WWW shoot me a pm, be glad to swap numbers. well, I have nothing "new" to report this am. Gustav is going through the expected intensification and it is dramatic, he is a cat 3 this am. As soon as the CoC cleared Jamaica, pressures began to drop and they continue to plummet at this moment. One of the "new" tools available this season is a partnership between the NHC and Google. They are offering "live" coverage of the hurricane hunter missions. This is a "real time" tool that totally fascinates me.. let me win the Florida lotto and I will buy my way onto a mission.. There are currently two missions underway, numbers 13 and14. Both are P-3 Orions. The central pressure is 959mb, a drop of some 28 millibars in about 12 hours.. pretty serious drop.. Cuba, and the Isle of Youth need to be scared, the winds will be 120+mph and according to Dr. Masters, they could experience 15 ft of storm surge. Here is a screen cap of mission 13 taken about 0645 this am.. it is still underway and can be watched here. It is an interactive map; Live Hurricane Recon Data in Google Earth Last evening as the sun set the visible satellite loop became dramatic just as the sun set. I cannot bring it here, you have to visit; Gustav visible satellite loop 8 29 2008 There is a name for the ultra high convection towers and they are indicative of strengthening. NASA has a nice little primer; A "HOT TOWER" ABOVE THE EYE CAN MAKE HURRICANES STRONGER an image from this story.. Hurricane Bonnie.. Here is this mornings five day forecast.. notice it is begining to reflect the westward turn that Doctor Masters spoke of last night. Hanna is doing nothing new, in fact Gustav may be interfering with Hanna. The models still have Hanna being ripped up some by shear come Monday.. this is good IMO. Notice the track keeps pushing west.. and that if you extrapolate "days" you will notice Hanna has a chance of screwing up our home opener.
Hurricane Hanna, now cat 3, has moved into range of the Key West Nexrad 248nm radar. You can see the eye wall enter into bottom of the coverage area towards the end of the loop. The hurricane hunters are continuing their mission.. Hurricane force winds are currently 165 miles wide, east to west, and 130 miles along the current track path. Cuba is looking at 10 plus hours of hurricane force and above winds.. and this will almost assuredly deteriorate as the storm is growing quickly.
This reminds me of a few years ago when, if it was the weekend, you could expect a new hurricane to target Florida.
the energy potential, and the steering currents are very similar to 2004-2005.. Central pressure continues to drop, it is at 954mb, at the rate of fall, more than two mb an hour, Gustav will be a cat 4 some two hours before landfall at Isle of Pines... sustained winds in excess of 130 mph, gusts to 160mph Currently, mission 13 is leaving the theater. On the last pass, hurricane force winds have extended to at least 120 miles north of the eye. Mainland Cuba is feeling hurricane force winds at this time. The total hurricane force windfield is now 168 miles north to south, 160 miles east to west. At 13 mph, that's nearly 13 hours at or above hurricane force with a direct hit. The entry and exit tracks are nearly on top of each other.. winds have increased in Torriente, Cuba by 50 mph in 9 hours.
well shreveport became out of the question so now it looks like im arlington bound until wensday. six flags here we come lol. anyone have any suggestions as far as fun in arlington besides six flags? ive never been there. thnx cnc66
I live 380 miles from the center of this storm, and I just had a feeder band pass through with 40+ mph winds.. had to go move the lawn furniture. Here is Gustav as seen from Key West;
many of the models have been predicting Gustav would become cat five in the gulf. I know this is hard to read but if you look closely, you will see that this model predicts Max Wind 168 knots. I posted this in the series in post #50. 168knots = 196mph.. BUT, this will be over open GoMex, the same forecasts have it diminishing as it arrives at landfall.
Marty... Unbelievable information man...I have got to say..I have been coming here to get Gustav information..not the weather channels..your explanation of everything has been amazing..what a learning tool. Im gonna use some of it to show my son as we see things on the news... VT
Do you think based on what you have seen...we really could be seeing a Cat 4 or 5 make landfall? It always seems like they start to hit peak strength, then start to lose structure...and high level shear to break Gustav apart?
Thanks for the kind words bro. May I suggest that you sit him down next to you and then go explore Dr. Masters tropical weather page. Dr. Masters tropical weather page Chock full of maps and satellite links that are animated. The site also covers the climate, ice caps, snow sking stuff, fires, smoke, volcano's all there..
Wow...his wundermap shows this being a Cat 5 pretty close to land before slowing to Cat 4...if that happens.... I can even imagine the possible destruction.....this could be horrific. I pray something does something to start to weaken this storm...but it doesnt look like theirs anything in the weather pattern to do this....
Marty, I think maybe more than a few read but don't comment. I know I check your weather threads on a regular basis. In fact, I hope you consider what you're doing as a valuable contribution here. I know I do. So thank you and please keep it up. Speaking to the issue at hand......WTF!!! This will be ugly for the NOLA area. Anyone in the area - I wish you the best. Stay safe.
the operative word is safe bro.. I am glad you took no chances, I sincerely hope you are able to return home and find everything still in place. I remember vividly the anxiety when I turned up the driveway hoping my cottage wasn't "in" Indian River. late one.. thanks for the kind words bro thanks John, I'm ok for this one.. Hanna is still dicey but not looking to be the threat Gustav is for NOLA. VT.. almost all the models agree that Gustav will encounter disruptive forces before landfall.. I guess the forward speed would determine if these have the time to diminish Gustav before landfall. I will go into the mechanics of this after I get some joe in my viens. Here is the latest radar from Key West
Just read Dr Masters blog....sounds like theres a pretty good chance this could hit as a Cat 3...its amazing reading this stuff....he breaks down which parts of the Gulf it will gain strength in...and shows where the cold water eddy's are that can weaken this monster. Sounds like its gonna be right on the hairy edge as far as storm surge...a Cat 4 Hurricane will probably cause storm surge that will over run most of the levee system....if it falls to Cat 3...the levees may hold to a degree...with the path this is taking though...looks like a ton of water is gonna get pushed into Lake Ponch...that cant be good.
Looking at the NOLA traffic cams, it looks promising that the citizens of the area are indeed evacuating. La DOTD - New Orleans Cameras
so i heard this just sped up and could hit earlier than expected..and hospitals are evacuating all patients instead of using the hospitals as shelters
got a new update. i am staying here which as it looks is better than where i was going as i should be on the west side of it(barely). but i prey for my nephew who is stuck in gonzales. we have a generator and plenty of provisions/alchohol so if the good lord wants me so be it.
Good to hear most of NO is taking this seriously. Jindal was giving a talk about it and seemed serious as hell, which is good. Hopefully it will be mostly winding down by the time it comes west enough into my area. Should, but you never know.
Good morning folks.. please send your prayers, positive energy and best wishes to the folks of Louisiana this morning. Cat 3 hurricane Gustav is about to make landfall. Here is the current radar loop, you can see the eye spinning in. To this point it looks like prayers have been answered and Gustav has become ragged, instead of the feared intensified. It will be interesting to read the discussions on why Gustav didn't become a monster in the Gulf. Cuba.. say your prayers for those folks too, was devestated.. THEY had 140 mph winds.. I was looking at hurricane hunter mission 26, which is returning to the barn, and 6the last two vortex messages suggest a "wobble" or "shift" to the west..be interesting to see what missions 27-28 find, they are both underway;
Aye it is looking to be manageable thank god. Kind of OT, but my grandfather was with a hurricane hunter crew during WWII.
Totally cool... the history of how they began is interesting. I'd be interested to know what kind of bird he flew in.. and where he flew missions.. you REALLY should get an oral history from him bro,, priceless info these old fella's have, and the book closes when they pass..
