Hurricane Gustav: Anybody got a dart board?

Updated Wednesday Morning: A quick check of the models early Wednesday morning suggests Gustav will ride the south and west side of an upper air high pressure system and track toward the central Gulf coast, probably making landfall well east of Galveston.

We're certainly not in the clear yet. But the model guidance is in a little more agreement this morning and shows a track more toward New Orleans, Mobile or even Pensacola, as noted in last night's discussion below.

Watch for a more detailed update later today.

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Updated Tuesday Evening:  Some of the late model runs are coming in and suggest Gustov could be a fast moving storm once it reaches the Gulf of Mexico.

One of the more trusted models (GFDL) puts the storm 100 miles southeast of San Luis Pass by 7 PM Sunday evening. Following this track, landfall could come as early as Monday morning along the Texas/Louisiana coast. One of the other models we give a lot of weight (HWRF) has also shifted the track northward into the central Gulf by Sunday.

If the models are showing the typical left bias, however, this could be a storm for Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama...or even Florida.

Previous Discussion Follows:

As I mentioned in this morning's post, the forecast models are showing a wide discrepancy regarding the track, strength and speed of Hurricane Gustav.

The GFDL (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory) model is the National Hurricane Center's model-of-choice. That model is predicting a category 4 hurricane south of Louisiana by Sunday afternoon. The HWRF (Hurricane Weather Research and Forecast) model did a good job predicting the track of Dolly and Edouard. That model suggests Gustav will be a category 2 hurricane north of the Yucatan by Sunday afternoon. Still another, the NOGAPS (Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System) has not performed very well this season, although it has been a good reference in the past. NOGAPS forecasts a track across Cuba and toward the Florida panhandle by Sunday afternoon.

By my math, there's about 365 miles between the HWRF and NOGAPS position and 275 miles between the HWRF and GFDL tracks.

The forecast track is likely to change. Where's the bullseye? Nobody knows. But we are fairly certain the dartboard is setting over the Gulf.