The orange one is the CLIPS which is just a statistical composite of tracks of other hurricanes that have passed where Gustav is. The only models really worth watching are GFDL, HWRF, GFS, NOGAPS and UKMET. The CMC is not bad either, but I don't think of it in with the others and the NOGAPS seems to be a little weird too. I've decided I'm not going to pay much heed to where the models are pointing for at least a couple days. It won't be until probably Friday when they have a decent idea of where Gustav will make landfall. Right now, anywhere from northern Mexico to northern Florida is vulnerable.
I remember Carla, I lived in Dickinson. Carla wiped out my cousin's house in La Marque and my grandparents in Galveston. Our house had minimal damage but many house had damage in Dickinson, I remember looking down the road and it looked like power poles were down and many on the road as far as you could see. Any Cat3 or higher is a bad storm and not to be taken lightly. I don't want another hurricane experience. (I stayed in Houston for Alicia, power out for a couple weeks.)
I guess I won't worry about this until Friday or Saturday. I would be down with an extra day off next week. Of course I don't wish anyone to get injured, killed or house blown away.
An often missed factor in the destructive power of a storm is it's sheer size. A storm might only be a Cat2 or weak Cat3 but have hurricane force winds 400 miles wide and end up as deadly and destructive as a storm with higher winds but smaller in diameter. After Rita, my father and I made the day long trek 40 miles North to Deridder, Louisiana putting us 85+ miles from the coast. There was still tremendous damage that far North and power was out for weeks.
I as you know, I was there and remember it well. I don't want a major hurricane anywhere around this area. Rita came in as a cat 3 and we now live 120 miles inland, but still experienced significant damage.
Right on time for the Republican convention. [No politcal remarks, just an observation of a major event that could be screwed up.]
naaaaah. This my hood for the last 22 years or so of my life. so i've eliminated RF, WWL, and WLT subdivision. Are you in CL(wb), BLE, i cant think of the neighborhood off of windfern. THe actual closest CF member from me lives down the street.
It's not a question of if, it's only a question of when, how often, and how bad they are. Sorry but, recognition of the situation is necessary to initiate rational planning.
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/ Gustav weakens a bit, but it's still a threat for Gulf Hurricane Gustav has struggled this afternoon while interacting with the mountainous Haiti terrain, and its maximum winds have dropped to 75 mph, just barely above hurricane status. The watchword with Gustav so far has been "uncertainty." As in the cone of uncertainty is gigantic, with a possible landfall from the Yucatan Peninsula to the Florida Keys, and everywhere in between. So why the uncertainty? Forecasters generally expect Gustav to trace the southern periphery of a high-pressure system located over Florida, but it's unclear how that system will develop during the next couple of days. The computer models are split on how to handle the movement, and therefore there's a wide divergence in landfalls. Another layer of complexity arises from Gustav's interaction with Haiti and, potentially, Cuba. Storms in the past have been known to "bounce" off these land masses with reformed centers, which throws off their forecasted paths. The models not only disagree about the path of the storm, they vary widely upon its forward speed. The GFDL model, for example, brings a category 4 hurricane rapidly to the central Louisiana coast by midday Sunday. But another global model, the HWRF, only has the storm coming through the straits between Cuba and the Yucatan by Sunday. This is especially troublesome if you're an emergency planner in New Orleans, because if the storm's coming by Sunday you're going to want to begin to make preparations tomorrow. As for Texas, if Gustav comes our way, we'll have another day or two before we need to begin making evacuation decisions. Hopefully the cone of uncertainty will narrow by then. When it comes to a storm's forecast intensity there's invariably uncertainty. Most of the models generally agree on some strengthening of Gustav during the next few days, provided it doesn't linger over Cuba for too long. The general expectation is for a category 2 hurricane by Thursday or Friday before Gustav enters the Gulf of Mexico. If a category 2 hurricane reaches the Gulf of Mexico, look out. It will very likely bloom into a major hurricane at that time because of warm sea surface temperatures, the Loop Current and low wind shear in the Gulf. But that's an analysis I'll leave until tomorrow, when we should have a better idea of whether it will reach the Gulf.
http://moe.met.fsu.edu/cgi-bin/gfdl...av07l&field=Sea+Level+Pressure&hour=Animation GFDL run, still early though
A shift to the west now? The latest advisory still says this strom is moving NW. For these models to be correct (a path just south of Cuba) a sharp turn to the west is going to have to happen soon.
