Gustav Update (Redeveloping south of Jamaica)

A lot of uncertainty remains in where Gustav will ultimately make landfall along the US Gulf coast. There is still a rather big spread beyond 48 hours with several of the so called "most reliable" models taking the far eastern extreme (MS/AL coast) and others taking the far western extreme (towards Corpus Christi). Below I will try and break down the possible senarios and what the models and NHC have said recently about Gustav.

So far today the storm's center redeveloped further south from its original location which caused a slight westward shift in both the model guidance and the official NHC track; however this evening we have seen another shift back to the east some 20 miles. Models are still having a hard time grasping a hold of a well defined center of circulation and therefore continue to be all over the place as far as possible landfall locations.

It looks like we will really start to get a better handle on where Gustav might end up going by tomorrow evening once the storm has a chance to get out over open waters and strengthen. The main forecast variable that will likely end up being the deciding player in where Gustav eventually ends up going will be a large ridge of high pressure located over the southeastern US. Current thinking from the NHC has Gustav getting caught up in a mid-level weakenss over the eastern gulf which will help curve the storm more to the right, towards the central LA coastline by late Monday or early Tuesday.

Something to watch closley over the next few days is that the models slow the storm down as it approaches the central LA coastline Monday. This is because Gustav will be runing up into the southwestern edge of the southeastern US high. If the storm slows down, it is possible that it could be pushed westward along the LA coast and into Texas.

On the otherhand, other models really develop a strong weakenss in the high which intern "pulls" the storm northeast and onshore somewhere near the Mississippi/Alabama coastline.

So needless to say, it is still too early to really start to narrow down where Gustav might make landfall. I will be out of town until Monday (so un, but it will be important for everyone to make sure they exersice there Hurricance precautions this weekend as Gustav is forecast to become a major Hurricane (Cat 3+) once he gets over the very warm waters in the gulf.

On one more out of order note...it will be interesting to see how our own MM5 model does once the storm gets closer to landfall since it only goes out 3 days.

Below are the two extremes between some of the more "reliable" models.

GFDL Output (Eastern Exreme)



HRWF Output (Western Extreme)



8pm NHC Update Track