09/01/08 REPORTS: Hurricane Gustav

[Tim Marshall]

HURRICANE GUSTAV CHASE SUMMARY: A fun, but long chase. Shawn and I departed Dallas at 11 PM and drove all night to Lafayette, LA. We arrived at 5:15 AM and were lucky to find a convenience store that was still open so I topped off the fuel tank (also had 30 gallons in the bed of the truck). Seeing the open eyewall on radar and dry air and shear still affecting Gustav, I knew it would continue to decrease in intensity. Fearing CAT 1 at landfall, we headed southeast on Rt. 90 to Morgan City, LA. We encountered the north eyewall at Bayou Vista (just west of Morgan City) and stopped to ride it out. White-out conditions lasted for about 30 minutes and I estimated winds were 65 MPH sustained with occasional gusts to around 80-85 MPH. We saw numerous tree branches break, a few power poles go down, a few plastic signs shatter, and roof shingles become displaced.

When the winds let up, we headed over the bridge to Morgan City. Winds went near calm and people were out milling about checking out the damage. For the most part, the city escaped major structural damage. The worst damage included the loss of gas station canopies, occasional failures of overhead doors and windows, and loss of sheet metal roofing.

After completing a quick damage survey on Main street, we drove back northwest on Rt. 90 encountering the northwest eyewall between Franklin and Patterson. I drove slowly in white-out conditions for an hour encountering gusts again to around 80-85 MPH. We arrived back in Lafayette around 3 PM. Seeing the heavy rain area to the north that would slow us down, I decided to head west on I-10 and made it back to Lake Charles at 5 PM. It was eerie to see the sun shining through occasional BINOVC in a ghost town where everything was shut down. We headed north on Rt. 287/69 at Beaumont to arrive safely in Dallas at 11 PM. Total trip was 1025 miles in 24 hours. Had no sleep for 40 hours (not recommended). Used 45 gallons of fuel. TM

 

[Brandon Ivey]

Matt Hughes and myself documented Hurricane Gustav from Houma, LA Monday morning. It wasn't as intense as we has expected when we departed Wichita on Sunday morning, but it was well worth the trip and we were able to intercept the eye wall. No stadium effect....maybe next time!

Anyone interested in watching the footage can do so by following the link provided. http://thestormreport.com/blog/2008/09/hurricane-gustav-from-houma-la/

 

[Doug_Kiesling]

I made the trip down to New Orleans and then to Houma for Hurricane Gustav and so some great hurricane action. The footage is up on my blog at http://www.lightningboy.net/content/update-gustav-chase

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

I have completed my chase log and pictures on hurricane Gustav. Myself and two others, Jason Foster and Aaron DeBruin met up in Miami, FL and made the 2179+ mile round trip to and from the target area / chase of Gustav in SW Louisiana. All and all, despite being cramped and the usual lack of sleep interruped by brief moments of adrenaline rushes, the chase went quite well. A full chase log can be seen at the link below...

http://www.sky-chaser.com/gustav08.htm

Below are some pictures taken during the hurricane chasing trip for Gustav...

Above: Chase map for hurricane Gustav.

Above: Evacuation traffic headed AWAY from the storm on I-10 in Mississippi.

Above: Flag flapping in hurricane forced winds (Houma, LA).

Above: Structural damage from winds near 100-MPH.

Above: Calm eye of hurricane Gustav with blue-sky peeking through.

Above: Storm-surge flooding on the east side of the storm (near Gulfport, MS).

 

[Jason Foster]

My take on the chase.

Chris pretty much covered the details of our chase. Additionally, I had to fly 1000 miles +/- (each way) to and from MD/DC to Miami. I am hesitant to indicate our winds, as we did not have a working anemometer at the time of the highest winds. I would estimate that a 1 minute sustained winds were around 100-105 mph for a period of about 20 minutes. I don't believe we had gusts that reached over 120 mph (although these may be overestimated based on the fact of lack of actual measurements that high).

Damage wise, Houma, LA saw the worst (from my estimation and extent of travels). Building damage as well as houses, commercial structures and more had roof damage mostly. Many of the poor quality metal panel structures quickly became the danger in this storm. We encountered many of these sheets of corrigated metal panels flying around, bent around trees and telephone poles. Interestingly, the most common damage was the pine needles and trees. The pines seem to be really brittle in this storm, and in addition to having to drive through pine covered roadways (which were oddly very soft feeling to drive on), we had to watch for the many oak and other large trees from dropping large branches on the vehicle.

I was also quite surprised by the high amount of chasers in the area. Perhaps due to the closer proximity to the central plains, it wasn't as far, or as much of a dedication to chase this one. Perhaps it was also due to the fact it was a smaller, weaker storm. I myself was very happy to have another tropical system under the belt after a three year absence (due to medical and lack of storms).

 

[Jack Beven]

Hello, everyone!

I see some interesting chase accounts for Gustav, and I'm sure there are a lot of others that are yet to come. I'm doing the NHC post-storm write-up on Gustav (which is going to take a while ), and I would like to ask all the chasers who have instrumented reports from the storm to contribute. I'm looking for maximum sustained winds, maximum gusts, minimum pressures, and the times all those things occured, along the lines of how we present them in our tropical cyclone reports. Those who would like to share their obs can e-mail me at [email protected]

A couple of quick comments on things I saw in the other Gustav thread: First, when we talk about the maximum sustained winds in a hurricane, we are normally talking about one relatively small location in the storm - usually in some portion of the eyewall. It is very rare for the strongest winds to actually pass over an observing site, so in the vast majority of cases the observed winds will be less than what's in the advisories. One of the steps in my post-analysis will be to try to determine where and how strong the maximum winds of Gustav were. Reports from portable towers, chasers, and other unofficial observations that I wasn't able to see in real-time will be a big help with this.

Second, the night Gustav crossed Cuba I was informed of the 211 mph wind gust. However, the information I had available did not tell me how accurate or representative it was, so I made a decision not to include it in the advisories at the time. I know the Cuban meteorologists have been working (Ike permitting) to see just how accurate and representative it was, and I'll be contacting them for the information.

I'll point out that in 1997 there was a widely-reported 'world record' wind gust on Guam during Typhoon Paka that in post-analysis turned out to be an instrumentation issue. That was one of the things that crossed my mind when the report came in.

Jack Beven

 

[Dennis Sherrod]

Hello, everyone!

I see some interesting chase accounts for Gustav, and I'm sure there are a lot of others that are yet to come. I'm doing the NHC post-storm write-up on Gustav (which is going to take a while ), and I would like to ask all the chasers who have instrumented reports from the storm to contribute. I'm looking for maximum sustained winds, maximum gusts, minimum pressures, and the times all those things occured, along the lines of how we present them in our tropical cyclone reports. Those who would like to share their obs can e-mail me at [email protected]

Jack Beven

Hey Jack,
Did you get the picture of the Cantori Cow leaning in the wind last week from David Neal and I? We thought that would help judge the winds. Thanks again for the info you gave us.
We will be sending in more to you.

 

[Jack Beven]

Hey Jack,
Did you get the picture of the Cantori Cow leaning in the wind last week from David Neal and I? We thought that would help judge the winds. Thanks again for the info you gave us.
We will be sending in more to you.

Dennis, I didn't receive that picture. Could you please re-send it?

Jack Beven

 

[Steve Miller TX]

I finally got all of my best photos uploaded into a nice photo album.

http://texastailchaser.com/chases/Hurricanes/Gustav/album/

 

[IAN GIAMMANCO]

Jack,

I wanted to check and make sure you have gotten the data summaries from the Texas Tech probes, I forwarded them on to Ed Rappaport and Bill Read shortly after Gustav. If you haven't, just let me know and I can send them directly to you. Thanks!

Ian