Hurricane Gustav: Heavy rain could be our biggest problem

Saturday afternoon update: Gustav will be making landfall earlier than previously forecast. It appears the high pressure ridge north of the hurricane will not build until after the storm has made landfall. The current forecast calls for landfall Monday afternoon in south central Louisiana.

Thereafter, the storm will stall and drift westward spreading heavy rain across Louisiana and Texas.

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Previous discussion follows:

While southeast Texas is still in the forecast cone, confidence is gaining that Hurricane Gustav will make landfall east of us in central Louisiana. The track from the National Hurricane Center has been fairly consistent since Thursday morning. The computer model guidance is also clustered around central Louisiana and has been for over 24 hours.

One of the more reliable models this season (HWRF) is showing Gustav stalling offshore and then drifting westward. This has shown up a couple of times in that particular model data over the last two days. Even those models that predict a landfall still show Gustav slowing down as it nears the coast.

I expect the storm to slow down or even stall over Louisiana and Texas after landfall on Tuesday and that could be the biggest problem for us. We could have heavy rain squalls for 48 hours (or more). Based on the current path of Gustav, the heavier totals would be in our northeast counties. Communities like Winnie, Liberty, Livingston, Conroe and Huntsville could be inundated. The Houston area could also have very heavy rain. Less rain will probably fall in our southern counties since the remnant moisture would be drifting along north of us.

All that said, we still need to prepare for a sudden shift in the forecast path. There is still some uncertainty on where the storm will go. We're about 72 hours from landfall after all. Once your hurricane preps are in place, enjoy the weekend. But keep track of Gustav.