Katrina
As you can see, Katrina was more of a direct hit on New Orleans than Gustav is currently projected to be. However, at this point in the storm (i.e. 5 days before Louisiana) Katrina was still projected to hit Florida, so you should be wary of last minute adjustments.
Gustav
I wonder if Cape Kennedy is ready for this? I don’t think the next Shuttle is going up until October so it’s probably in the VASB rather than on the launch pad.
However, if you look at the computer models you see something rather funky happen. This storm gets hit by a great wall of something. Perhaps the remnants of Gustav or something but the computer models show it hitting basically a brick wall before coming to Florida and turning back out to sea. This will definitely be an interesting storm to watch.
The Lousiana National Guard has been placed on alert.
Department of Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff is down in Louisiana meeting with officials in anticipations of Monday’s Hurricane Gustav hitting land somewhere near New Orleans. Officials have already declared a state of emergency and begun limited evacuations of some areas. There will be no ‘Superdome’ refuge of last resort this time, so folks are starting to hit the highways already.
The most recent Gustav track from the NHS puts it about 25-50 miles west of New Orleans, though at present it is too far out to accurately assess just where it will hit land. Anywhere from Florida to Texas is technically in the strike zone.
And if that isn’t enough for you, Hurricane Hanna is now coming toward Florida with an arrival sometime later next week.
Not a great week for the Republican convention.
Watch out Florida…
Weather Underground's latest computer model
You can find some pretty good maps from the National Hurricane Center, but I also recommend looking at the Weather Underground as there you can see the computer models that go into making the NHC track.
Here is a recent computer model (8-27-08). As you can see, these vary quite wildly.
Duck and cover New Orleans. Katrina was your warmup exercise, if you trust this NHC track.
He’s in critical condition, if you couldn’t tell from the video. ]]>