*A considerable amount of dry air is working into the circulation of Gustav, on the west and south side.
*Outflow is also a bit restricted, indicating that there is a degree of upper air shear going on (around 20 knots of southerly shear)
*The central pressure has fallen a bit, but not very much, in recent hours.
*Models have shifted a bit to the left, and the NHC track has been adjusted a bit in that direction as well. Good news for New Orleans.
BOTTOM LINE: It sure seems unlikely that Gustav will grow much stronger before landfall. In fact, there is a real chance it could weaken a bit before reaching the Louisiana coast late tomorrow morning.
So… it looks like a low end category three, or perhaps a category two, will make landfall somewhere around Morgan City. If this is the case, that will mean no catastrophic damage for New Orleans or the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Still, a hurricane of that magnitude needs to be respected and the call for evacuation was a good one based on the information at the time.
To me it looks like the greatest risk will come from inland flooding if Gustav stalls over Louisiana, and the threat of isolated tornadoes through South Mississippi, Southwest Alabama, and the Florida panhandle.
It is unfortunate that some media people and politicians cranked up the hype machine in recent days; this will most likely not go down as a really historic hurricane in terms of strength. It is clearly not the “storm of the century”, the “mother of all storms”, and the “worst storm to ever threaten the U.S. coastline”. If I had a dime for every bone-headed comment I have heard from people on cable news networks in recent days, I could retire. Most of these people simply don’t know what they are talking about.
OTHER NOTES: You can see live video from our StormChaser vehicle on Ustream here. They are set up on the Alabama Gulf Coast…. and don’t forget we will be on our live stream on abc3340.com (and al.com) tonight at 7:30… join us then if you can!
