ATL GUSTAV: Tropical Depression - Discussion

[soonertwister]

It seems the inner core is intact but the intensity dropped greatly over Haiti. The intact inner core being so small, I think Gustav could quickly re-intensify.

The mountains in Haiti have pretty high elevations. I've seen them completely kill storms before. I don't think that will happen with Gus, but, if Gus moves slowly, it will become weaker and weaker until it is away from those mountains. Tropical systems are low level and mountains are not their friends, at all.

None of Gustav went over the high mountains of Haiti, which are primarily found near the border with the Dominican Republic.

The biggest mountains of the southwest peninsula were not crossed directly, as Gustav was headed northwesterly and missed them by a significant distance. Only the southwestern quandrant was significantly affected.

I expect Gustav to reform into a hurricane almost immediately over open water.

[CrazyC83]

HWRF 126 hours out....Cat 5 SE of GRand Isle, La.

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod ... p_126l.gif

Looks almost identical to Camille (although much smaller than Katrina).

[Innotech]

theres no way in hell that verifies.

some crazy fireball looking thing right there.

[bostonseminole]

theres no way in hell that verifies.

lets hope not.

[Wx_Warrior]

The problem is something has to verify sooner or later. Just hope it's not strong. Let's hear your opinion on why not....IMHO i think high end 3.

[Innotech]

the waters and conditions right off the coast tend to weaken hurricanes as they come inland on Louisiana's coast. No way a cat 5 makes it inland. Remember how quickly Lili degraded to a Cat 1? This is a storm with a tiny core and wind radius. It will be very susceptible to the atmospheric changes as it nears land.

[PTrackerLA]

the waters and conditions right off the coast tend to weaken hurricanes as they come inland on Louisiana's coast. No way a cat 5 makes it inland. Remember how quickly Lili degraded to a Cat 1? This is a storm with a tiny core and wind radius. It will be very susceptible to the atmospheric changes as it nears land.

True, but alot of that had to do with wind shear. I also wonder how much of it had to do with it being early October. With that being said, I haven't seen a major northern GOM storm NOT weaken at and before landfall in recent memory.

[Innotech]

even Katrina weakened a bit before slamming into Buras.

[RL3AO]

Looking at the HDOBs, it appears the center is still vertically stacked and was not disrupted.

[alan1961]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7581669.stm

[Hurricanewatcher2007]

the waters and conditions right off the coast tend to weaken hurricanes as they come inland on Louisiana's coast. No way a cat 5 makes it inland. Remember how quickly Lili degraded to a Cat 1? This is a storm with a tiny core and wind radius. It will be very susceptible to the atmospheric changes as it nears land.

Just because Gustav is a small system now doesn't mean that it will stay that way through out its life. Once you start having eyewall replacement cycles the windfield should start to expand out.

[Innotech]

Im trying to keep the panic on the board to a minimum but thanks for that info. I already considered that though.

[RL3AO]

Im trying to keep the panic on the board to a minimum but thanks for that info. I already considered that though.

When the HWRF and GFDL show majors near NO, there is nothing you can do to stop the hysteria. If this was the 12z model, the forum would have crashed by now.

[SoupBone]

No panic here but some serious concern. All my family is in Houma and this http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod ... p_126l.gif would be the end of my hometown. Of course I'm rational and if this was Friday night I'd be freaking for sure. Now....not so much.

[Hurricanewatcher2007]

Im trying to keep the panic on the board to a minimum but thanks for that info. I already considered that though.

Yes people on the board should try to keep the panic down to a minimum but at the same time people need the full facts no matter how grim they are so they can make the most informed choices. Its a fact that as Hurricanes go through their internal structural changes they tend to spread out their windfields people need to keep that in mind through the upcoming week. The affects could be felt well away from where the center makes landfall so even people outside the cone but right around the edges of the cone should know that they could still feel affects from Gustav even though the center doesn't make landfall by them. Will Gustav grow to the size of Katrina I don't think so. Katrina was not a normal Hurricane as far as its size it was larger then average however Gustav should grow to be larger then it is now to be comparable to other more normal sized Hurricanes.

[ROCK]

Im trying to keep the panic on the board to a minimum but thanks for that info. I already considered that though.

No reason anyone should panic we are 5-6-7 days away from any landfall...GFDL destroyed NO a few runs ago not really surprised it did this again nor the HWRF. Do not hang your hat on one model run nor look at the NHC line, focus on the cone. Cone is fairly large and takes up most of the GOM.....so still fair amount of uncertainty still after that wonderful DISCO.........nobody is out of the woods yet..

[ROCK]

Im trying to keep the panic on the board to a minimum but thanks for that info. I already considered that though.

When the HWRF and GFDL show majors near NO, there is nothing you can do to stop the hysteria. If this was the 12z model, the forum would have crashed by now.

[shah8]

If the models keep verifying, well...the moderators will have to be nazis about posting rules. I don't think there is any way that the windspeeds will verify, especially for the hwrf (what was the most amazing thing about it was, it was an entire circle of basically cat 6 winds, there would be no "better side" of this storm. Thinking about it, how the hell would HH be able to do good recon in the gulf? It's pretty dangerous to sample cat5 storms.

Really, I'm still shell-shocked. About the one, single, wee bit of good news for NO is that they're the target this far out. That normally means that NO will not get hit. The other bit of *useful* take from this model is that we will *know* by Friday morning whether to expect the worst. The synoptics get simple at the end, as if hurricanes were just another cannonball in Summer's cannon.

[soonertwister]

the waters and conditions right off the coast tend to weaken hurricanes as they come inland on Louisiana's coast. No way a cat 5 makes it inland. Remember how quickly Lili degraded to a Cat 1? This is a storm with a tiny core and wind radius. It will be very susceptible to the atmospheric changes as it nears land.

That's more than five days out. It doesn't take that long for a storm to morph from small to large, or even sometimes huge. Strong hurricanes tend to gather size and mass quickly except in unusual circumstances where the storm is riding in a bubble of little resistance surrounded by adverse circumstances.

Cyclone Tracy was a tiny storm (the entire system wasn't much more than 8 miles across) that devastated Darwin Australia. But the kind of storm that threatens NOLA is not a Cat-5, but a powerful storm with a large and well-organized circulation that has enough time to build a huge tidal surge ahead of it. In those cases, it's irrelevant how strong the hurricane is when it arrives at NOLA, the damage is already going to happen.

NOLA cannot withstand a Cat-4 or 5 storm at LA landfall that approaches from anywhere from the SSW to the SE that arrives with established size and strength, and whose core passes anywhere near NOLA proper. The shape of the Mississippi Delta and the squeegee effect on inshore surge, coupled with the rapid loss of barrier islands in the region offshore to the SE of NOLA almost ensures bad trouble if that happens.

Sorry to be a party pooper, but until NOLA builds Cat-5 resistant perimeter defenses, the city will always be in danger in every hurricane season.

[RL3AO]

My final thoughts as I'm going to bed.

The mid-level and low-level centers were not disrupted at all during the passage of Hispaniola. It appears that once it gets away from the island, it could undergo rapid intensification at any time.