Friday morning...

Good morning! Let's talk tropics....

Gustav: The table looks set for Gustav to rapidly strengthen over the next couple of days. I expect Gustav to become a major hurricane, and it might happen before it even reaches the Gulf of Mexico.

My ideas are unchanged in terms of landfall. I think the most likely landfall location is somewhere between Lake Charles, LA and Pascagoula, MS late Monday night or Tuesday. I notice the UKMET model turns Gustav southwest once it reaches the northern Gulf of Mexico, but that is an outlying solution.

Anyone with interests on the Gulf coast from the upper Texas coast to the Florida Panhandle needs to continue to monitor the progress of this system.

For those heading to the App State-LSU game, I don't think you have any major problems in terms of the actual weather. The only problems would potentially be with traffic heading home due to evacuations in Louisiana.

Hanna: Hanna will continue moving WNW for a few more days, and then the steering currents relax. After that, it is still anybody's guess where Hanna eventually tracks. There is a growing consensus amongst the modeling that Hanna could then make an odd SW track and head to or south of south Florida and toward the northern Gulf coast. Quite an odd track, but we shall see.