KATC StormTeam 3 Weather BLOG

Unfortunately the National Hurricane Center (NHC) track has not varied much over the last 24 hours and it appears quite prudent that all of us in Acadiana need to prepare for hurricane, perhaps major hurricane conditions developing across the area Monday night.  Based on the latest guidance, Gustav is expected to become a major hurricane this weekend traversing the Gulf of Mexico Sunday and Monday with tropical storm conditions developing from St Mary Parish by midday Monday moving northwestward covering all of Acadiana Monday evening.  Hurricane conditions with sustained winds increasing over 75mph with gusts exceeding 100mph will be possible along and near where the eyewall makes landfall.  The current forecast track brings the center of the storm through St Mary Parish Monday night through Iberia, St Martin, Vermilion, Lafayette and Acadia Parishes by pre-dawn Tuesday morning with hurricane conditions overspreading all of Acadiana Tuesday.  Hopefully this forecast track will change but based on the information today all of us need to prepare for a severe wind event worse than that of Hurricanes Andrew and Lili.  This storm will likely be on par with Rita but instead of the highest winds confined to the southwest part of the state, all of Acadiana through Alexandria will be vulnerable to sustained hurricane force winds with severe damaging gusts over 100mph.  Due to the uncertainty of exact landfall it is premature to make any kind of surge forecast at this time.  If the ultimate landfall follows the exact path portrayed by the NHC today (which is similar to Andrew’s path in 1992), significant surge issues will be confined to Vermilion Bay eastward (the water came up to 10-14ft in St Mary and Terrebonne Parishes in Andrew)…however…if Gustav’s landfall is just 30-50 miles farther to the west, a very high storm surge, equal to or greater than Rita’s surge will be possible.  We’ll talk more about this as we get closer to landfall.  The bottom line, prepare your home for high winds, rainfall of 10-20” if the storm doesn’t stall and evacuate if and when you are told to do so.  Hopefully this storm weakens somewhat prior to landfall, but it will likely not decrease in intensity like Lili did in 2002. Not that we want to wish the storm on someone else, we have to remember the forecast track this far out could be more than 100 miles off, which would mean big changes in the weather that we would get, but the consistency or the models and the NHC forecast tracks indicates a definite threat to all of Louisiana.  Please stay informed and with KATC through the weekend and the storm for the latest.  Feel free to email me at rob.perillo@katctv.com or any of us in the Weather Lab at stormteam3@katc.com for questions and concerns you may have…however, due to 100’s of daily emails we have been getting already, we can’t readily respond to them, but know we are reading them and will try to respond in kind on air when possible.