Monday, September 1, 2008

9/1 - 4pm - Gustav Weakens, Levees Hold, More Storms to Come

Gustav has weakened to a Category 1 with winds pushing up to 90mph right now. There are mass power outages in the Louisiana/Mississippi area, including New Orleans. That's to be expected with the winds that came through. Here's some great news: the levees are holding in New Orleans. Even though they are being over topped by the storm surge, they are at least not failing and holding most of the water back. There has been some flooding in the Industrial Canal area of New Orleans, but that seems to be an isolated case at this point. The levees are holding in that area, but they're unfinished and water is sloshing over them. Let's hope that the levees hold for the remainder of this storm, especially with the Mississippi River now being affected.

The track from the NHC brings the remains of Gustav into Oklahoma now instead of parking it in Texas. This raises the possibility for some drenching rains here, especially if this meets up with a cold front expected to stall out over us early this weekend.

Now, here's some bad news. We're going to add two names to the family of storms in the Gulf and Atlantic. Hurricane Hanna was upgraded from a tropical storm this morning and Tropical Depression 9, soon to be Tropical Storm Ike, is on it's way. Hanna is going to impact North or South Carolina this weekend and Ike is going to try to aim for the Bahamas as a hurricane by this weekend as well. I'll get maps and models up on those tomorrow after Gustav stops causing such a stir.

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