At 5 pm, EDT today, Hurricane Gustav was located near 22.1 N and 82.9 W. Sustained winds had increased to 150-mph, making the hurricane a solid Category 4. Central pressure had dropped to 942 MB (27.82"). The storm was moving northwest at 15-mph.
For those of us in Galveston, it is important to note that the official track and many of the models continue to pinpoint the central Louisiana coast as the most likely landfall location. This would be good news for us, but bad news for our neighbors to the east. The consistency of these projected paths offer hope that the system may not pull too many surprises prior to landfall and our area may be spared most of the severe weather associated with such a severe hurricane. On the other hand, models still depict a turn to the west after landfall. This would bring heavy rains and even some strong winds to east Texas by mid-week. We may see some gale force gusts and a few heavy rainbands along the coast. Of course, seas will be very rough, though our strongest winds from the storm should be off-shore, so tides will not be an issue IF the storm behaves as predicted.
Below are the latest model arrays (courtesy of the South Florida Water Management District), a map of the latest official track and a map of the highest percentages are for winds in excess of 50-knot (both courtesy of the National Hurricane Center):
