07L: Hurricane Gustav

[James Skelton]

If you haven't done this before I strongly suggest you get up with someone...

i'll shoot you a pm.....

I appreciate that. I've intercepted 4 hurricanes to date and since Katrina I always go with a partner. I've got one for this storm but it wouldnt hurt to have another. Again, any additional advice is greatly appreciated. Anyone know anything on whether they will start contra-flow on I-10?

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

While this is very dependant upon which way the eye decides to wobble, I think Laffeyette seems like an ideal base to have a shot at an eye intercept given current forecast track. The majority of the area seems to be just on the edge of Cat 5 storm surge.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lch/tropical/maps/StormSurge/LafayetteParishStormSurgeMap.pdf

 

[James Skelton]

Yea, I'm feeling Baton Rouge possible for assurance of getting the NE quadrant. Noticed another jog to the left tonight too. Anyone else?

 

[David Wolfson]

My checkpoint is 23.9N 85W at 10Z http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showpost.php?p=190330&postcount=191 . The 06:45Z location on IR looks to be about 24N and 84.4W. Moving somewhat faster and east of the earlier track.

 

[Darren Addy]

As of 3:30 AM EDT, it appears that Gustav has its eye back (via Cuba's Casablanca station). I also find it interesting that the models (ignoring the outliers) seem to be coming into much better agreement on the track. That means that confidence in the track is growing (cone getting narrower, in effect) while the confidence in the intensity forecast seems to be waning.

DUE TO THE
VARIOUS FACTORS...THIS IS A LOW CONFIDENCE INTENSITY FORECAST.

(11:00 PM EDT Sat. August 30th discussion)

 

[David Wolfson]

... According to TWC on-camera dudess a minute or two ago, "Contraband flow has just started on the roads leading out of New Orleans."

 

[Tim Marshall]

Last minute preparations will be made today before heading to southern Louisiana. Current target is Lafayette and I can adjust east or west on I-10 depending on the the track. As mentioned in a prior post, I would not recommend chasing southeast of New Iberia unless you want to get trapped by floodwaters. Morgan City is at too low of an elevation and the only escape route is Rt. 90 - which will go underwater both east and west of the city. I've chased in this area during Hurricanes Lili and Danny which were weaker storms than Gustav and can attest to problems with flooding in this area. Also, chasers need to bring extra fuel as certain gas stations are reporting they are out of gas. Contra-flow appears to be limited to the New Orleans area. For more information, check out: http://www.lsp.org/pdf/HurricaneGuideSE.pdf.
TM

 

[Blake Michaleski]

I agree with Tim... During Lili, surge was bad south of New Iberia towards Weeks, LA

South of US 90 and LA 14, the elevation drops of a good bit except for the saltdomes of avery island and weeks island.

I would head down that way but i'm going to take my chances with the MS gulf coast over towards Slidell. At the end of the storm it'll put me closer to Mobile, AL... although "home" is nearby in Baton Rouge, LA.

Good Luck to Tim and others.

 

[rdale]

Scanner link at http://jeftek.com/events/monitoring-hurricane-gustav/

Mayor Nagin says Gustav is over twice as wide as Katrina, and will have much more impact on NO than Katrina and Betsy.

Hmmm...

 

[jladue]

Scanner link at http://jeftek.com/events/monitoring-hurricane-gustav/

Mayor Nagin says Gustav is over twice as wide as Katrina, and will have much more impact on NO than Katrina and Betsy.

Hmmm...

Nagin's using appropriate scare tactics I'd imagine. The data doesn't support as big a storm though the angle of attack is worse for New Orleans. The storm really took a big hit from Cuba and I was wondering if some dry air from the trough to the west is entraining into the storm. THough now the convection is on its southwest side so I wouldn't be surprised if the storm deepened with the protection from the southwest. I see lots of people assuming last night that the storm was still cat-4 when the eye was on the north side of Cuba and then thinking the island didn't have much impact. There's always a delay factor between landfall and the full negative impact on the storm. I think now the storm's recovering.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Just as a note we have ended the Cuban data mirror and are doing our own long-range base reflectivity mosaics now:

http://www.stormtrack.org/radar/

This shows the oil production infrastructure in the Gulf.

Tim

 

[Patrick Marsh]

Correct me if I'm wrong but won't the Fujiwhara effect spin Gustav counter-clockwise(to the west) if he does interact with hanna? The two systems will begin a counter-clockwise motion around a point in the center of the two sytems which would INITIALLY take Gustav to the west, then south-west, THEN looping him back around to the east towards Hanna. Yes, ultimately this would bring the storm to the east, but it would first have to be to the west because the orbit around the central axis has to be counter-clockwise as we are in the northern hemisphere. Am I thinking this out wrong?

You are correct about the counter-clockwise pinwheel around Hannah, but I physically cannot think of a scenario in which Gustav would turn west, then southwest to achieve this pinwheel. For the Fujiwhara effect to occur, the center of the hurricanes must remain within a specified distance of each other (let's call this distance "d"). If the distance between the two center's becomes greater than "d" the storms will break the Fujiwhara "bond" and will stop the pinwheel. A west or southwest motion for Gustav would break the bond as it would increase "d" - especially since Hannah's motion is much slower than Gustav's. In any event, Gustav is much stronger than Hannah and so I'm more inclined to say that Gustav would probably turn east and pinwheel Hannah around it, and not the other way around (Gustav pinwheels around Hannah).

While on the topic of Fujiwhara (for anyone who cares), you can see great examples of this in developing, poorly organized tropical cyclones. As new bursts of convection develop around the center, the pressure drops faster beneath these new busts of convection and so you get little swirls that pinwheel around each other - around a common center. This is a small scale version of the Fujiwhara effect.

 

[Patrick Marsh]

Probably the most prominent thing I've noticed this morning is that Gustav has little to no new convection (feeder bands, if you will) on the south side. All of the new convection is developing on the north and east side. Unless Gustav can begin generating new convection on the south side, I don't see any major strengthening, and I would suspect quite a bit of weakening as shear increases and it begins to interact with the cooler waters of the continental shelf. It also appears that Gustav is making more than a little "wobble" to the west right now. The 06Z model (which I take with a grain of salt) consensus has shifted back to the west.

EDIT TO ADD: Water vapor imagery seems to be picking up on a weak shortwave trough retrograding to the SW as Gustav approaches. This could be the source of the drier air that appears to be wrapping around the south side of Gustav and be increasing the shear over Gustav. Depending on what happens with the ridge (which 12Z RAOBS indicate continues to strengthen over the eastern CONUS - 30m rises in WI and OH) this might be providing enough of a buffer between Gustav and the SWern most postion of the eastern ridge to be responsible for the westward jog of late.

ONE LAST EDIT: Upon further investigation of WV imagery, it appears the shortwave trough to the west of Gustav is impeding outflow on the western semicircle. Just compare the extent of the outflow on the west side to the east side. Doesn't look good for any significant strengthening in the short term. I wouldn't be surprised to see more weakening in the near term, either.

 

[cedwards]

I don't get what you are seeing. I see most of the convection on the West and SW side of Gustav. The center of circulation is actually right or east of the projected path.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

Appears its begining to strenghthen, eye is redeveloping rapidly in the last 2 or 3 scans and while deepest convection is in the SW quadrant, it's begining to once again surround the eye wall. It still looks like its suffering the impacts of some dry air in ingested just to the North of the eye wall, but every scan its looking better and better...