A tropical depression strengthened rapidly in the central Caribbean Sea, and we now have Tropical Storm Gustav with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph. Gradual strengthening of the storm is expected during the next 24 hours and Gustav is expected to become a hurricane Tuesday morning.

Gustav, at 11 p.m. EDT, was centered about 150 miles SSE of Port Au Prince, Haiti, and moving toward the northwest at 12 mph. Some slowing in forward speed in likely over the next day or so. Gustav is expected to approach or make landfall along the coast of Haiti Tuesday afternoon.

Hurricane warnings are now in effect for the southwest coast of the Dominican Republic and the south coast and southern peninsula of Haiti, between Barahona in the Dominican Republic west around Haiti's southern peninsula to Le Mole St. Nicholas, Haiti. A hurricane watch is in effect for the remainder of the Haitian Coast, from Le Mole St. Nicholas to the northern border with the Dominican Republic. Tropical storm warnings are in effect for the south coast of the Dominican Republic east of Barahona to Santo Domingo. A tropical storm watch is in effect for Jamaica. Remember: a warning means that these conditions are expected within 24 hours, and a watch means that they are expected within 36 hours.

Models predict a generally westerly movement.

Hurricane Gustav continues to strengthen as it approaches the southern peninsula of Haiti.

As of 8 a.m. EDT, the eye of Gustav was located about 75 miles south-southeast of Port Au Prince, Haiti. Maximum sustained winds were near 90 mph making the hurricane a category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.

Gustav was moving toward the northwest at 9 mph. A turn to the west-northwest and decrease in forward speed is expected tomorrow. Gustav will cross southwestern peninsula of Haiti this afternoon, then approach southeastern Cuba tomorrow.

Hurricane warnings remain in effect from Barahona in the Dominican Republic west to Le Mole St. Nicholas in Haiti. Hurricane watches are posted for Jamaica, southeastern Cuba (specifically, the provinces of Las Tunas, Granma, Holguin, Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo), and Haiti from Le Mole St. Nicholas northward to the northern border with the Dominican Republic.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Fox News) � Gustav continued to gain strength after becoming a hurricane early Tuesday and forecasters said it could become a Category 2 hurricane before hitting Haiti's southern coast.

The fast-forming storm was also on track to hit Cuba.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said the hurricane's maximum sustained winds were near 85 mph (140 kph) with higher gusts. A Category 2 hurricane has winds of 96 mph or higher.

Haitians were told to prepare for evacuations as the storm formed Monday in the Caribbean. Haiti upgraded storm warnings to hurricane warnings along much of its coast as Gustav closed in from the south. A warning means hurricane conditions are expected within 24 hours.

Forecasters said storm preparations in Haiti should be rushed to completion and that floods and landslides were possible across its southern peninsula. The forecasts suggested Gustav's eye could pass near the capital of Port-au-Prince, home to nearly 3 million people.

Cuba issued a hurricane watch for several provinces and Jamaica upgraded its tropical storm watch to a hurricane watch. A watch means hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours.

t 5 a.m. EDT Tuesday, the hurricane was centered about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south-southeast of Port-au-Prince and was moving toward the northwest near 9 mph (15 kph).

On Monday, Carnival Cruise Lines diverted one of its ships to a Mexican port instead of Montego Bay, Jamaica, to avoid the storm, company spokesman Vance Gulliksen said. Other cruise lines said they were closely tracking its path.

After passing over Haiti, Gustav was expected to hit Cuba's southeastern tip Wednesday.

The commander of the Guantanamo military base in Cuba, where the U.S. holds about 265 men, many suspected of belonging to al-Qaida or the Taliban, ordered U.S. military personnel to prepare for a hit late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

"We're monitoring the track of ... Gustav and reviewing our destructive weather plans and procedures," said Army Maj. Richard Morehouse, a spokesman for detention operations at the base.

Vulnerable to high winds are dozens of tents pitched on an abandoned runway where those attending war-crimes trials for alleged terrorists are housed. No hearings are scheduled this week.

Morehouse told The Associated Press the lockups housing all detainees "are capable of withstanding hurricane force winds and rain."

Haitians were told to stay on alert for evacuations and to avoid crossing flooded rivers, the cause of nearly all 23 deaths on the greater island of Hispaniola during Tropical Storm Fay earlier this month.

The agricultural ministry, already dealing with a food crisis and fighting to raise national production, advised farmers to put livestock in safe locations. All maritime activities also were suspended until further notice.

Dominican authorities also issued warnings and advised small boats to remain in port, even on the north side of the island of 17 million people.

Meanwhile, two other storms were lashing the southeastern U.S. and Mexico's Pacific coast.

The remnants of Fay brought heavy rain and winds from Georgia to Louisiana. Floridians were still mopping up floodwaters from a storm that stuck around for a week and made a historic four landfalls, dumping more than 30 inches of rain along the central Atlantic coast.

The National Weather Service said the vestiges of Fay would deluge northern Georgia with 3 inches to 5 inches of rain expected in the Atlanta area and up to 8 inches in northeast Georgia. In Alabama, flash flood and tornado warnings were posted.

In Mexico, Tropical Depression Julio continued to weaken as it dumped rain on the central Baja California peninsula before heading toward the northern Gulf of California.

The hurricane center said late Monday that Julio was downgraded from a tropical storm to a tropical depression. The Mexican government lifted all tropical storm warnings.

Julio caused little major damage but forecasters said it could drench the U.S. Southwest with rain in the coming days.

The National Hurricane Center said Julio was located about 40 miles southeast of Bahia de Los Angeles in Baja California, Mexico, and was moving north-northwest at near 7 mph.

Gustav made landfall along the southern coast of Haiti yesterday afternoon as a hurricane. Since then, Gustav has been struggling with the high, rugged terrain of southwest Haiti. Overnight, Gustav weakened to a 60-mph tropical storm.

As of 11 a.m. EDT, the center of Gustav was located about 125 miles southeast of Guantanamo, Cuba, or just north of the western tip of Haiti's southwest peninsula. The storm was edging toward the WNW at 5 mph. A gradual turn toward the west is expected over the next day or so along with a slow increase in forward speed. The storm is also forecast to intensify, likely becoming a hurricane once again tomorrow.

Gustav should pass between Jamaica and the southeast coast of Cuba tomorrow. Heavy rain along with life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides will continue over Hispaniola today, then gradually shift into eastern Cuba, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

Gustav may swirl into the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend and could threaten the U.S. Gulf Coast by Labor Day. While Gustav's future strength is not certain at this time, it is expected to be a hurricane--possibly a major one--by the time it reaches the Gulf. All interests along the Gulf Coast should pay very close attention to this potentially dangerous storm.

Tropical storm warnings remain posted for Jamaica and much of Haiti. A hurricane warning is in effect for southeast Cuba. Hurricane watches have been issued for Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic Basin, two other areas are being monitored for tropical cyclone development. One is located several hundred miles northeast of the Leeward Islands, and the other, a few hundred miles WSW of the Cape Verde Islands.
 

On the eve of Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary, a nervous New Orleans watched Wednesday as another storm threatened to test everything the city has rebuilt, and officials made preliminary plans to evacuate people, pets and hospitals in an attempt to avoid Katrina-style chaos.

Forecasters warned that Gustav could grow into a dangerous Category 3 hurricane in the next several days and hit somewhere along a swath of the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle to Texas � with New Orleans smack in the middle.

"I'm panicking," said Evelyn Fuselier of Chalmette, whose home was submerged in 14 feet of floodwater when Katrina hit. Fuselier said she has been back in her home one year this month, and called watching Gustav swirl toward the Gulf of Mexico indescribable. "'Is my house going to flood again?' ... 'Am I going to have to go through all this again?,"' she asked.

Heading on a course where The Big Easy is in the center of the cone...

Taking no chances, city officials began preliminary planning to evacuate and lock down the city in hopes of avoiding the catastrophe that followed the 2005 storm. Mayor Ray Nagin planned to leave the Democratic National Convention in Denver to return home for the preparations, as did U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu. Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency to lay the groundwork for federal assistance, and put 3,000 National Guard troops on standby.

If a Category 3 or stronger hurricane comes within 60 hours of the city, New Orleans plans to institute a mandatory evacuation order. Unlike Katrina, there will be no massive shelter, a plan designed to encourage residents to leave. Instead, the state has arranged for buses and trains to take people to safety.

It was unclear what would happen to stragglers. Jerry Sneed, the city's emergency preparedness director, said officials are ready to move about 30,000 people. Nearly 8,000 people had signed up for transportation help by late Wednesday.

At a suburban Lowe's store, employees said portable generators, gasoline cans, bottled water and batteries were selling briskly. Hotels across south Louisiana reported taking many reservations as coastal residents looked inland for possible refuge.

Steve Weaver, 82, and his wife stayed for Katrina � and were plucked off the roof of their house by a Coast Guard helicopter. This time, Weaver has no inclination to ride out the storm.

"Everybody learned a lesson about staying, so the highways will be twice as packed this time," Weaver said.

Katrina struck New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, and its storm surge blasted through the levees that protect the city. Eighty percent of the city was flooded.

Though pockets of the New Orleans are well on the way to recovery, many neighborhoods have struggled to recover. Many residents still live in temporary trailers, and shuttered homes still bear the 'X' that was painted to help rescue teams looking for the dead.

Many people never returned, and the city's population, around 310,000 people, is roughly two-thirds what it was before the storm, though various estimates vary wildly.

Since the storm, the Army Corps of Engineers has spent billions of dollars to improve the levee system, but because of two quiet hurricane seasons, the flood walls have never been tested.

Floodgates have been installed on drainage canals to stop any storm surge from entering the city, and levees have been raised and in many places strengthened with concrete.

Robert Turner Jr., the regional levee director, said the levee system can handle a storm with the likelihood of occurring every 30 years, what the corps calls a 30-year storm. By comparison, Katrina was a 396-year storm.

Gustav formed Monday and roared ashore Tuesday as a Category 1 hurricane near the southern Haitian city of Jacmel with top winds near 90 mph, toppling palm trees and flooding the city's Victorian buildings.

The storm triggered flooding and landslides that killed 23 people in the Caribbean. It weakened into a tropical storm and appeared headed for Cuba, though it is likely to grow stronger in the coming days by drawing energy from warm open water.

Scientists cautioned that the storm's track and intensity were difficult to predict several days in advance.

Emergency preparations also were under way along Mississippi's coast. The eye of Hurricane Katrina pushed ashore near the small towns of Waveland and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and along the 70-mile coastline, roughly 65,000 homes were destroyed, and thousands of businesses and hulking casino barges were wiped out.

"We don't need anything of this magnitude to come here," said Biloxi Mayor A. J. Holloway. "Katrina just devastated us."

The oil market also reacted to the threat. Oil prices jumped above $119 a barrel as workers began to evacuate from the offshore rigs responsible for a quarter of U.S. crude production. Any damage to the oil infrastructure or Gulf Coast refineries could send U.S. pump prices spiking.

"A bad storm churning in the Gulf could be a nightmare scenario," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago. "We might see oil prices spike $5 to $8 if it really rips into platforms."

Many residents hadn't yet made a decision about leaving. Lawson "Sonny" Brannan, a construction company owner, was busy renovating a client's home Wednesday, just blocks from where a levee was breached in the Lakeview neighborhood. A wall of water up to 15 feet deep wiped out the home.

Brannan calmly went about his business, but nonetheless kept a watchful eye on the weather.

"I'm not going to worry about it until I see it in the Gulf," he said. "Then I'll make my decisions."

 

Based on the latest information from a Hurricane Hunter Aircraft early this morning, Gustav is beginning to strengthen as it nears Jamaica in the Caribbean. Maximum sustained winds are now 70 mph.

As of 8 a.m. EDT, the center of Gustav was located about 80 miles east Kingston, Jamaica, and was moving slowly southwest. Given a recent movement and redevelopment in a more southerly direction, it now appears the center of Gustav will past east, and perhaps south of Jamaica today, before turning back to the west.

Regardless if the center misses a direct hit on Jamaica, heavy rain and the threat for flash flooding will increase over Jamaica today, along with gusty winds and increased surf.

Gustav is forecast to make a turn in a more westerly direction, and eventually a west-northwest to northwest direction over the next few days. It is also forecast to continue to strengthen, and will likely be at hurricane strength, if not today, as it approaches the Cayman Islands later Friday.

Gustav is then forecast to enter the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend, and continue tracking northwest or north. It could threaten some part of the US Gulf Coast by Labor Day.

There is still some uncertainty regarding Gustav's future strength; which will likely be fine tuned based on what happens today. It is forecast to be a hurricane as it tracks through the Gulf of Mexico; possibly a major one. All interests along the Gulf Coast should pay very close attention to this potentially dangerous storm.

Meanwhile, a low pressure located several hundred miles east-northeast of the Leeward Islands has become Tropical Depression Eight as of early this morning. Continued strengthening is forecast, with it likely becoming Tropical Storm Hanna today.

It is forecast to track northwest into the weekend, and become a hurricane by late this weekend. For now, it does not appear to be of any threat to land, but will need to be closely monitored beyond this weekend.

 

The tropical Atlantic remains active as we move into the climatological peak of the hurricane season.

Tropical Storm Gustav continues to impact Jamaica this morning, bringing heavy rain and flash flooding, tropical storm force winds, and high surf.

As of 8 a.m. EDT, the center of Gustav was centered about 100 miles west-northwest of Kingston, Jamaica, and has begun moving in a west-northwest direction, near 8 mph. With a portion of Gustav being impacted by the higher terrain of Jamaica, slight weakening occurred overnight, with maximum winds now at 65 mph.

 

Gustav is forecast to make a turn in a more northwest direction today, which is bringing it back out over open waters and toward the Cayman Islands. Once unimpeded by Jamaica, Gustav will likely regain hurricane status later today as it continues to tap the very warm Caribbean waters.

Jamaica will continue to experience gusty winds, heavy rain, and the threat for flash flooding and mudslides on the eastern side of Gustav, with conditions deteriorating over the Cayman Islands later today and tonight as Gustav approaches. Rainfall amounts of up to a foot are expected, with local amounts of more than 20 inches possible.

Current forecast guidance continues to suggest Gustav will enter the southeastern Gulf of Mexico over the weekend, strengthen, and continue tracking northwest or north. It could threaten some part of the US Gulf Coast by Labor Day.

This far out, there is still some uncertainty regarding Gustav's future track and strength; but the possibility of a major hurricane still exist. All interests along the Gulf Coast should pay very close attention to this potentially dangerous storm.

 I was on vacation in an area with no internet connection - or Cable TV even!

A weaker-than-expected Gustav swirled into the fishing villages and oil-and-gas towns of Louisiana's Cajun country Monday, delivering only a glancing blow to New Orleans that did little more than send water sloshing harmlessly over its rebuilt floodwalls.

It was the first test of New Orleans' new and improved levees, which are still being rebuilt three years after Hurricane Katrina. And it was a powerful demonstration of how federal, state and local officials learned some of the painful lessons of the catastrophic 2005 storm that killed 1,600 people.

The storm that crashed ashore as a Category 1 hurricane had by late Monday been downgraded to a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph.

"They made a much bigger deal out of it, bigger than it needed to be," 31-year-old security worker Gabriel Knight said in New Orleans' nearly empty French Quarter. "I was here with Katrina. That was a nightmare. This was nothing."

 

There was growing optimism that New Orleans would soon reopen for business. Mayor Ray Nagin cautioned that Tuesday would be too early for residents to return to a city largely in the dark, but their homecoming was "only days away, not weeks."

"I was hoping that this would happen, that we would be able to stand before America, before everyone, and say that we had some success with the levee system. I feel really good about it," Nagin said.

A mandatory evacuation order and curfew remained in effect, and nearly 80,000 remained without power after the storm damaged transmission lines that snapped like rubber bands in the wind and knocked 35 substations out of service.

The city's sewer system is damaged, and hospitals were working with skeleton crews on backup power. Drinking water continued to flow in the city and the pumps that keep it dry never shut down � two critical service failings that contributed to Katrina's toll.

Crews will comb the city Tuesday to fully review the damage, Nagin said, with the goal of having residents return later in the week. Buses are in place and ready to bring people back, he said.

"I would not do a thing differently," Nagin said. "I'd probably call Gustav, instead of the mother of all storms, maybe the mother-in-law or the ugly sister of all storms."

The sense of relief did not mean the state came through the storm unscathed. A levee in the southeastern part of Louisiana was in danger of collapse, and officials scrambled to fortify it. Roofs were torn from homes, trees toppled and roads flooded. A ferry sunk. More than 1 million homes were without power. And the extent of any damage to the oil and gas industry was unclear.

But the biggest fear � that the levees surrounding the saucer-shaped city of New Orleans would break � hadn't been realized.

Wind-driven water sloshed over the top of the Industrial Canal's floodwall � the same structure that broke with disastrous consequences during Katrina � and several Ninth Ward streets close by were flooded with ankle- to knee-deep water. Still, city officials and the Army Corps of Engineers expressed confidence the levees were holding.

Gustav blew ashore around 9:30 a.m. near Cocodrie (pronounced ko-ko-DREE), a low-lying community 72 miles southwest of New Orleans.

Forecasters had feared a catastrophic Category 4 storm on the 1-to-5 scale, but Gustav weakened as it drew close to land, coming ashore with 110 mph winds. It quickly dropped to a Category 1 as it steamed inland toward Texas.

Late Monday, Gustav's center was located about 20 miles southwest of Alexandria, lumbering northwest at about 13 mph. Forecasters expect the storm to weaken further to a tropical depression on Tuesday as it moves toward northeastern Texas. Storm surge flooding was expected to continue to subside overnight.

Gustav has been over land for more than 24 hours, and has been downgraded to a Tropical Depression, and dropped from the rolls as an active storm.

Although Gustav is now a tropical depression, it is soaking the Ark-La-Tex region; where Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana border each other.

Steering currents over the south-central United States have weakened. This has allowed Gustav to slow down and become nearly stationary over northeastern Texas and northwestern Louisiana.

This stall or very slow movement will aid in producing large rainfall amounts. The heaviest rain will be focused over northern Louisiana, northeastern Oklahoma, the entire state of Arkansas, and Missouri during the time span from today through Friday.

 

 

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