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Last Updated: 7:44 PM GMT on September 05, 2009
— Last Comment: 4:31 PM GMT on November 04, 2009
Latest W Atlantic Basin AVN / IR Satellite Image...
 ********* National Hurricane Center SSD NOAA Atlantic Satellite Imagery EUMETSAT IR Imagery (Africa / E Atlantic, etc) National Data Buoy Center Note: As always, please check the comments section for any additional updated information... ;) Thu Sep 3 2009 2:30 PM CDT... Hmmmm, tropics... TS Erika was designated from 94L on Gustav's 1st anniversary of Louisiana landfall, Sept 1st... but has remained disorganized as the ghostly sfc LLC has become farther detached from the deep convection, moving W / WNW below Puerto Rico currently in the faster LL flow... Lesser Antilles / NE Caribbean region receiving very hvy rainfall, esp near hvy convection which has shown good cyclonic turning today and remains nearly stationary to slowly drifting WNW under a slower mid level flow regime... Watching large disturbance that's come off Africa, GFS been advertising future development... and keeping an eye closer to home for any possible tropical / semi-tropical or subtropical development if low shapes up in the Gulf next few days, and certainly beyond given the prevailing pattern of troughing into the Gulf... although upper level westerlies are strong over most of W / Cen Gulf... So, thought I'd finally post my account / observations as Cat 2 Gustav made a direct strike in Terrebonne on Labor Day Sep 1 2008, causing widespread severe wind damage across the area... Yeah, a couple days late on this, but I'll probably be late for my own funeral so WTH... Thought of several ways was gonna present this... but have dropped most of the tech aspects, descriptive analysis and charts / imagery that was previously focusing on with the critical ULL that developed / influenced Gustav from Cuba landfall thru Gulf passage to landfall here... Could add later... Sheeesh, whatever I do, needed to post a new entry, so here's my rather verbose, boringly repetitive personal account of Hurricane Gustav - A Hurricane Gustav retrospective... Sun Aug 31st 08 aftn / eve... Finalized storm-strengthening my B Cane home, all windows boarded 3/4" ply, had driven wedges top / sides in door reveals from inside then nailed thru door / wedge into jamb to lock in place, all but final entrance at carport... most items of importance secured in all sizes ziplock to 3 mil thick lawn bags, necessary documents kept on person... covered some furniture / computer with tarps... turned off all water / gas... turned down fridge / freezer to coldest setting, left electricity on knowing likely would fail before being fire issue... and LOL, had put my 3 tomato plants in bathtub... Finished near sunset, then left to Mom's location in Gray... Drove slow perhaps along with only 2-3 other cars heading N, and without issue although noted on way sheriff's deputies were checking a guy near closed convenience store... and he - or anyone else out - had better have a good reason / excuse as we were under mandatory evac order and round-the-clock 24 hr curfew already, meaning if you stay you're on your own and better remain on one's property... An exact estimate of those who stayed isn't available, but likely 10 to 15K of us probably remained in Terrebonne, out of 110K... the rest took part in the largest evac in LA history as 1.9 million folks left - some who got caught in floodwaters in Cen / N LA! ...or the severe wind damage near Baton Rouge! ...or drove several hundreds of miles into OK, AR, TN or beyond to find an available motel or relatives... Arrived and finalized preps at Mom's place at dark, at last minute clearing an area to get my truck in garage - a move that saved my truck from tree limbs later... Had both homes secured well, but had run outta time to place extra 2X6 braces over our farm building's overhead doors as had done for Katrina - came back to bite me, as proved no match for Gustav's fury... Provisions, water, meds, etc stocked w enough for about 10 days or more (although only a 12 pack of beer, major shortsightedness on my part, LOL!), extra ice and had froze several jugs / bottles prior... Settled in, watched latest news / storm progress on TV / WWL radio... Again turned all fridge / freezers to coldest setting and before going to bed about 11:30, turned AC cold enough to require hvy blankets... Winds were already becoming quite breezy off / on going completely calm to eerie stillness at times into the night as a few strong feeder bands came across, one prompting a tornado warning near NOLA early eve (tornado threat loomed large with the dry air entraining issue, and one destroyed several homes in Westwego)... Increasing TS force winds began arriving after midnight to predawn over SE LA, esp in spiraling bands... What a lovely start to the 2008 Labor Day holiday (!), the earliest one can be, on the 1st Monday of September... Awoke about 5:30 with passage of strong tstm band bearing 50-60 mph winds, had chance to watch Gustav approaching on TV till 6:30 when lost power... It was all WWL and other radio stations for info after, well into the next week! Winds steadily rising locally to sustained TS winds / gusts to 65 by 7-8 AM while hurricane force winds of 100 to 117 mph (officially recorded on USGS stations) had already hit coastal Terrebonne by then... Rainfall being minimal, spent lot of time outside 8-9 AM taking a few photos / observing effects as conditions worsened... Despite holding on strongly, winds caught NE facing storm door from my grip and ripped it half off, forcing a quick repair to secure it... LOL quit using that entrance... Also at 8:30, a 100 ft oak behind the house - it's trunk previously twisted / split by Katrina - came crashing down with a large thud that shook the house... The 1st of several to go... By 9 AM, we'd already gotten into sustained winds near 70, w gusts of 80-90 mph as HUML1 recorded an 82 mph 3 sec peak by then... In the NE Quadrant of Hurricane Gustav, N of Houma near Gray LA, near 10 AM Sept 1 2008...  "Image shot about 30 min into worst onslaught of strongest NE to ENE/ESE veering winds, with gusts ranging locally from widespread 90-100 mph up to 110 mph in iso spots, as Gustav plowed across Terrebonne... straining trees to breaking point while shredding them (view facing WNW)... Image shot at relatively fast 1/500th sec @ F4, froze most motion - large limb lower left had just hit ground, from large pecan on right... it and other debris that appear "lying still" on ground were actually blowing across to the left - woulda been a blur at slower shutter speed... Seriously bent 30 ft young pecan trees foreground... fallen limb splashing water in mid sect... while large 90-100 ft older pecans in background are losing large limbs and near toppling / breaking point... Blurred airborne leaves / debris flying past fill the sky... Unlike several others we had, all the trees in this view survived, albeit stripped of most leaves / severely damaged... And note minimal rain - our worst winds hit as large streak of mid level dry air was arcing into Gustav's circulation / eyewall on E and N side, during landfall / passage... I doubt this static image can convey the brutality of the ferocious winds that a video would... And the noise was jet engine deafening!!!" In later conversations comparing experiences with friends who also stayed, we were generally feeling by 9 AM it's been bad, but might not be too much worse, similar to what we had under Katrina by this point... Yeah, right... It began getting noticeably worse after 9:15 onward as Gustav was making landfall near 9:30 AM CDT below Cocodrie, some 30-35 miles below us... and with hurricane winds extending out 70 miles, the dreaded NE quadrant began slamming us in upper Terrebonne and beyond... Strongest sustained winds at the sfc reached the 75-85 mph range and gusts were peaking 90-100 mph (HUML1 peak of 94 mph was highest recorded inland S LA)... while very localized gusts to 110 mph or higher were occurring but obviously not captured by anemometers (few and far between here)... as I can attest from personal observation, these gusts - resembling narrow fingers of air - may reach near the ground in a swath only 60-200 ft width... causing very severe localized damage that often resembles the hit / miss nature of tornadoes, albeit one-directional... quite probable this phenomena is more frequent in dry air entrained strong TC's... Little rainfall, but lotta strong gusty winds over a broad region, with a much higher than normally expected gust to sustained wind ratio as some studies are noting... Gustav was appropriately named, as he became the King of Gusts having left his legacy in W Cuba with it's record-setting highest gust ever of 212 mph... and this nasty tendency was maintained in it's trek across SE / S Cen LA well beyond the Baton Rouge area - about a 100 mile wide swath of tremendous wind damage that destroyed large stands of forested areas and most powerlines... LOL, it may have appeared disorganized on sat imagery, but this tenacious hurricane certainly deserved it's billing as a strong Cat 2... And once inland, the hvy precip field became concentrated finally, as reached into Cen / N LA where hvy flooding rains piled up, a far cry from the mere 3.45" storm total later noted at my B Cane home or at Mom's in Gray - only 4.2"... Anyway, it was from 9:45 to about 10 AM when I was still out in some of the worst of this awesome wind storm, capturing a few images including the one posted above, while huddled against the west-facing garage door bay... The winds increase incrementally that one reaches several moments where you think you've seen the worse... and repeatedly, the next blast is harder - and fear level / anxiety rises on the risks involved, seeing growing devastation before your eyes... Watched young and old trees topple or shatter around our property, limbs of all sizes flying - even limbs of near 1 ft diameter or bigger, not just falling but getting thrown over 100 ft away - was a frightful scene... Shingles from the house were ripping off as were our floodlights - one next to me mounted 7.5 ft up, sailed past me landing 36 ft away smashing at end of driveway - as was any other loose object... while the garage doors rattled violently back / forth against the truck / car backed against them serving to beef up... and at times, the house itself had that perceptible "breathing in-out" motion with the walls / roof... The noise was incredibly loud and constant, much as one would hear standing next to a jet aircraft or to those familiar - a blown-out gas well... Imagine you could shout at someone 3 ft away and they wouldn't hear a thing... I decided was pushing my luck / safety, so went back inside shortly after... The strongest impact of Gustav in this area lasted about 6 hrs - 8 AM to 2 PM, with the most intense during a 2 hr duration from 9 to 11 AM as Gus was moving at a good clip to NW near 16 mph, as winds veered NE / ENE / E / ESE... at each juncture of establishing the veering trajectory, stronger winds seemed to pick up for 10-15 minutes, then settle a bit... (Wind direction here, never did veer much past SE - had little to no S winds)... At closest, Gustav's center fix was 25 miles SW of this location... Even during the worst, at times winds would briefly drop to 30-40 mph, before rapidly rising back to hurricane force... This is common in all hurricanes, and HUML1 station faithfully recorded details showing it's peak one hour sustained winds were 65.2 mph during 9-10 AM... and 57.7 1 hr sustained 10-11 AM... Almost incredulously, HUML1's one minute sustained winds peaked at "only" 77 mph, although I'd bet it had 85-90 mph 30-45 sec winds... Yet, I have no doubt the final NHC assessment of Gustav sustained at 105 mph as moved across SW Terrebonne was quite accurate - rarely are such sustained winds observed on the ground... Once a hurricane, esp a decaying one, moves inland over the low-lying flat terrain of coastal Louisiana the slight but effective frictional interaction / surface roughness lessens winds felt on the ground, frequently causing strongest sustained winds to lift up off the sfc perhaps as little as under 100 ft AGL to a few hundred ft above - as have observed on occasion with tall trees to reference... Just a general observation, as an intensifying TC at landfall with strong convection would bring a greater representation of those winds to the sfc... A bit exhausted, took a short nap from 1-2 PM as Gus passed further off to NW then went out to check damage (was into St Mary Parish near noon, winds began slowly winding down to below TS force here by 4 PM)... House was intact, minus a few shingles, all corner floodlights ripped out, minor cosmetic damage to soffit, etc where debris hit... and N and E facing sides were covered in a carpet of leaves as was the ground - completely littered with limbs / leaves... Numerous trees of all sizes were either uprooted by the base or snapped off a few feet up, just horrific to see the loss... But looking up toward our building, was quickly obvious something was wrong - who had opened the damn doors? As feared, Gustav's winds had ripped down one of them left unbraced... Checking, the overhead door had collapsed falling on two tractors... In the process, the enormously rapid pressure change blew out the building's back side, cracking the welded horizontal members loose - but the wall remained upright, it's sheathing bent and dangling... Also an odd sight, as a large empty cardboard box atop an old dresser nearby was still sitting unmoved!!! ... and hardly anything else was disturbed inside except by the collapsed door! The building damage was our worst, and a common scene across S LA - a metal fire station near us lost both doors and was shredded completely... as did most store canopies, carports, awnings, sheds... Most well-built homes held up intact as should be expected with a cat 2 hurricane, although there were exceptions where those strong localized winds ripped them apart.. but fallen trees and powerline poles caused much of the widespread severe damage to residential structures...Yet, as many direct hits from trees occurred, we saw an astonishing number of close misses, maybe 10 times as many... Beyond our building damage, we lost several older large 80-100 ft trees - 7 oaks, 3 pecans - and numerous younger ones... while all trees were damaged by degree in lost limbs - some remain stuck, hanging precariously within the branches today... Besides the one fallen tree I HAD to move, dealing with the rest remains a multi-year project... Practically all leaves facing the N and E sides were stripped bare, and in many cases the outer bark was ripped away as well... Swamp maples across S LA were destroyed in large number too... While many of these also snapped or uprooted, cypress, live oaks and old established pines surprisingly held the best in exposed areas... However, a later survey on area waterways and open lakes such as Des Allemands and Verret system showed a tremendous loss of ancient cypress, some of these 500 to 1000 years old...  "Assessing property damage... Large water oak snapped 12 ft up, blocking our gravel road... In background, one of our building's overhead doors failed / collapsed, blowing out back side (out of view) as welded frame members snapped w bulge of pressure... Priority 1 next few days w chainsaw and tractor clearing this! Lost several other large oaks / pecans uprooted or trunk snapped, as this scene repeated itself across the S LA landscape from Gustav's large wind swath." The immediate task for the next few days was the large water oak that had fallen across our gravel road, blocking access... well sorta, as I could drive around it, although I couldn't get far - dangling still-connected powerlines hanging 4-6 ft above blocked the road up from us... Beyond that, LA State Police / Terrebonne sheriff's deputies had a road block set up, so you could walk... but not drive anywhere... Not until 3 days later, when enough of the roads had been cleared for reasonable passage, and most were still dangerously clogged, esp considering the less attentive drivers who fail to understand what an emergency declaration means! Anyway, our tree had to be chainsawed and moved by tractor, which kept us busy next few days... Lacking a generator we cooked up all frozen food on the outdoor gas grill, had a good fill of steak, shrimp, etc, LOL... and / or kept a lot on ice till needed, with plenty of canned goods remaining... The house remained relatively cool until into the 3rd day, so wasn't bad to take as post-storm misery goes... Luckily right after, a weak frontal effect came down with slightly cooler, drier air for a couple days, thanks to Hanna... Luckily got power back on following Sunday here, 6 days into it... and on the 8th day after at my B Cane home... The fresh wet smell of wood / trees permeated the air for days after... That is, until the overwhelming smell of stench from turned-over waterways and dead fish / aquatic habitat became obvious - this pervasive nastiness lasted 2-3 weeks, and common here following hurricane impact... LDWF post-storm survey estimated 133 million freshwater fish perished from Gustav, compared to the 175 to 192 million fish loss estimates of the annihilation from Andrew... However, enough spawning age fish did survive in marginally oxygenated waters or migrated back into those areas to contribute repopulating the fishery this past year... In assessing Gustav's ranking of hurricane impact in Terrebonne, the destruction from winds is in the top 3 of the past 60 years or more... close to what Andrew did, perhaps worse... but maybe not as bad as Betsy... although some feel the damage was equal or worse than 1965's monster, guess depends on each person's individual impact by location... and some in W Terrebonne got hit harder by Hilda in '64... Other than immediate SE coastal Terrebonne to right of center, the surge was far minimal compared to other two - Gustav's highest surge inundated areas father east around coastal E LA to E NOLA and along the NE Gulf coasts of MS / AL to NW FL... Addendum: Gustav was one of the few strong hurricanes to make landfall during the daytime here - a vast majority have come in at nighttime / predawn... With all power lost for days after and light pollution gone, the clear view of the night sky was a rare treat to behold! Such glorious detail, including the Milky Way... The only light interrupting these dark nights, was the "blue light special" coming from police patrol cars passing or at the roadblocks, adding an eerie surrealism to the darkness... New Orleans' WWL radio was primary source of info for those who stayed behind, as always... Sad to say, our Parish officials failed to relay information to them - didn't hear a word on Terrebonne's fate until 36 hrs later on Tuesday night when thankfully 2 councilmen called in to offer an assessment of damages here... After that, just bits and pieces until nearly 5 days later... Terrebonne's Parish President felt overwhelmed, delegating all control of operations to the Sheriff, whose dept did a fine job... Odd, since relieving himself of responsibilities he couldn't at least compile info to relay to news media in a timely manner... The parish president's new EOC director equally failed, later fired... The total communication breakdown and harsh public criticism that ensued forced changes / reorganization of the parish govt's emergency operation plans... Gustav produced the lowest pressure reading in Terrebonne Parish since Betsy in 1965, which measured 948 mb at both Houma and Grand Isle... I fail to understand the NHC disregarding Gustav's lowest pressure reading from the USGS station DCLL1 at Caillou Lake - 951.6 mb... choosing to use the 955 mb reading from Cocodrie's LUMCON station as the minimum... A close analysis of Gustav's center tracking on radar loop showed it passed below Cocodrie, but directly over the Caillou Lake station! Another notable sfc pressure difference over a short distance was also observed / documented by a ULMonroe team's instrument packet deployed 2 miles W of Gray near Hwy's 311 / 90... which recorded 964 mb as lowest, while the HUML1 station barely 4 miles away SW of there fell to 959.8 mb - a 1 mb per mile difference! Gustav was attempting an EWRC on approach and during landfall... Radar showed a large circular mid level "eye" feature approximately 35 miles across trying to form as neared Terrebonne landfall, but like Katrina aborted the process from either land interaction or from the last significant episode of dry air entrainment... It was during this period that HH Recon reported difficulty observing any eye... However, it was later observed the smaller inner core center was intact as moved farther NW into S Cen LA redeveloping convection... By then, the dry air entrainment issue appeared over as weakening Gustav became detached from also weakening W Gulf ULL that had plagued it - as reached Cen and N LA, Gustav produced hvy flooding rains...
Latest W Atlantic Basin AVN / IR Satellite Image... *********National Hurricane CenterSSD NOAA Atlantic Satellite ImageryEUMETSAT IR Imagery (Africa / E Atlantic, etc)National Data Buoy CenterNote: As always, please check the comments section for any additional updated information... ;)Thu Aug 27 2009 12:20 PM CDT: TS Danny info - As stated above, until I get time with a new entry, all thoughts, observations, analysis, discussion will be within comments section bel...
Latest W Atlantic Basin AVN / IR Satellite Image... *********Note: As always, please check the comments section for any additional updated information... ;)Tue July 14 2009 - Bye Ridge-a-Mortis, Hello Trof! Drought relief on way... Watching for TC development in Atlantic...Plenty of "ring-of-fire" activity continues dropping down from N around the old N TX Ridge-a-Mortis over LA and points EWD, but mostly iso to w scat shwrs / tstms last few... Have fallen back to...
Latest W Atlantic Basin AVN / IR Satellite Image... *********Note: As always, please check the comments section for any additional updated information... ;)**********Mon Feb 2 2009 5:15 PM CST: SE LA Winter obs so far... Nate the Nutria give his prognostication on Groundhog Day...Well, I thought I might come outta my burrow, appropriately enough on Groundhog Day... so after hearing Punxsutawney Phil's forecast of 6 more weeks of Winter, I consulted with our own SE ...
Latest W Atlantic Basin AVN / IR Satellite Image... *********Note: As always, please check the comments section for any additional updated information... ;)*********Wed Dec 24 2008: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all in WU-land!!!Wishing all a wonderful holiday!Many {{{HUGS}}} to all of you who checked in on me with well wishes and thoughtful greetings over the past few months... I do apologize for not responding to each of you personally... Doing okay here,...
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