8/27 - 6pm - Gustav is Causing Quite a Stir

Things haven't changed much since yesterday aside from the fact that Gustav has been downgraded to a tropical storm for the time being. This storm will become a hurricane again on Friday barring any drastic forecast track changes. Here's the latest from the NHC:



The spaghetti chart is still fairly consistent with yesterday's, but with a slight shift to the east:


(NOTE: The CLP5 and XTRP lines on the chart are not to be used as forecast tracks)

I didn't want to mention this until the storm got halfway past Cuba for the sake of accuracy, but the national media already did this for me. New Orleans is at risk from this storm. I have been seeing the writing on the wall for the past 48 hours and I'm sure many of you have as well. The storm's forecast track has been for the most part pretty consistent on going into the Gulf. Just about every model agrees that this storm will end up hitting the Gulf Coast, but where is the issue. The general gist right now is somewhere between West Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle. I sure hope we're wrong about this and the forecast track changes, but I have a bad feeling at the moment. If these forecasts don't change by this Friday, talk of evacuations will skyrocket and the ball might already be rolling by then on getting people out of NOLA. Let's hope this doesn't need to happen. New Orleans is such a wonderful place to visit, which I did in June, and the culture there is simply unparalleled. Hopefully we'll get lucky and the models will trend a different way.

A few pockets of showers associated with the remnants of TS Fay like the ones we've been seeing all day are still around the area. They should dissipate overnight with a dry day ahead tomorrow. Next chance of rain will happen on Friday with a small probability of thunderstorms in the afternoon. Dry weather will prevail again for this weekend and into next week. Temperatures will touch 90 degrees for Labor Day and hold for the remainder of next week.