Hurricane Gustav’s Flight Path

OK, so I’ve gathered some data from weather stations along the gulf coast to try and determine where Hurricane Gustav will hit, at least from my predictions. Now the only caveat to this methodology is that the local weather forecaster who relies only on his own instrumentation and observations might not come up with the same conclusion as I will, simply for the fact that my projection is based on data from multiple points that are hundreds of miles apart. So, in light of that, there is something to be said for communication with other weather observers as well as some modern methods of weather forecasting. Before modern forecast methods, hurricanes and other natural weather phenomenon sometimes cause devastation the likes of which we haven’t seen in 50 years or more, thanks to modern prediction methods and communications of warnings to the populace.

So at what points did I chase down observation information and what were my resulting predictions? Well, let’s start from the farthest point east that I considered and work our way back west. First, let’s take a look at Gulfport, Mississippi. Here are the charts that I pulled from Wunderground.com for this location:

At this point you can see that around 10:00 a.m. the barometric pressure really started to drop. Gulfport started the day off around 1013 millibars and is down to around 1008. Interestingly enough the temperature is dropping, but so is the wind speed over the past few hours. So what does this tell us? If I were predicting the weather locally in Gulfport using these and physical observations, I would probably predict a good storm rolling in, but would be hesitant to consider a direct hit from a hurricane to be forthcoming.

Next up, let’s take a look at New Orleans, Louisiana. Here’s the charts for NOLA:

Now here we see the barometric pressure has been dropping as well. Interestingly enough, NOLA started out around 1010 millibars this morning and is down to almost 1006. That is very significant, as I will point out at the end of this post. Also, you will note that the temp has just started to drop a bit as the dewpoint is rising, noting a possible future convergence of these two factors. As for wind, it’s been picking up all morning there with gusts close to 30 m.p.h. If I were a local forecaster in New Orleans I would definitely be predicting stormy weather over the next 24 hours. Would I predict a hurricane? Hard to tell with just this data. Again, knowing when the hurricane season is most active and knowing that this storm is moving inland from the gulf, it wouldn’t hurt to consider that as a possibility.

Next up is Lake Charles, Louisiana. This is another spot close to the shoreline that is also within the “cone of error” as the officials from the hurricane center like to call the margin of error.

Here we see a different picture than what we have seen previously. The afternoon temperature continues to rise, as it should on a normal day. While the barometric pressure is falling, indicating a storm is coming, it is only now at 1009 millibars, a bit different than it’s neighbors to the east. While the wind speed has picked up during the day, it hasn’t spiked like we saw on the chart for New Orleans. A local forecaster basing his offering on this information for Lake Charles might indicate stormy weather for the next 24-36 hours, but nothing indicative from this of a hurricane level blast.

Our fourth and final point is in Texas. For this one I went a bit towards the edge of the “cone of error” and decided to see how Galveston was fairing during all of this hubub. Here are the charts for Galveston, Texas:

Here again, as in Lake Charles, we see some similar differences from the NOLA and Gulfport data. While the temperature here is fluctuating, the barometric pressure has yet to reach 1009 millibars, starting the day off around 1014. Wind speeds are calm and gusts are not looking bad either. If I were predicting local weather for Galveston, Texas based on this data I would say rain within the next 36 hours, with thunderstorms possible. Highly unlikely that this would be the site of a hurricane given these parameters, unless something significantly changed overnight.

So what’s my conclusion? Again, I have the advantage of technology and the ability to check the data from multiple sites located several hundred miles apart. However, judging from this data, I would have to say that as the storm travels towards the path of least resistance, I would look for landfall to be very close to New Orleans, perhaps just slightly east of it. East would be better for the city, since the storm surge on Atlantic basin storms is worse to the east of the eye because of the rotation of the storm. A direct hit or one that is slightly west of the city would be devastating to the city still under recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Let’s all pray they get a break on this one.

I’ll be back in 24 to see how my predictions hold up. Just for the record, the current prediction from the National Hurricane Center calls for the path to go just to the west of NOLA.