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Gustav: Reports From Jamaica, Models Consistent

Aug 29, 2008; 8:44 AM ET

As of this Friday morning, Tropical Storm Gustav is almost done passing over the island of Jamaica, though their radar is no longer transmitting images. Given the impressive eye on radar Thursday night, I was tempted to say it was a hurricane, though the wind speeds set me straight.

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Model Spread Maps [JessePedia] courtesy the AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center. ARCHIVE AVAILABLE!

At one point last night, the storm covered the entire island with heavy rain and storms (according to satellite):

Now, as to those wind speeds. A few bad weather observation transmissions, off by one digit, caused weather sites to show winds as high as 447 mph last night at Kingston. This is, of course impossible, and if you look closely you'll see that the rest of the data (i.e. pressure) is offset by one column (294.9 instead of 29.49). Assuming the first two digits for wind are correct, we're left with a maximum gust of 49 mph, clearly Tropical Storm strength. The other official station on the island, Montego Bay, stopped transmitting before the storm fully overtook the island.

Jamaica's ODPEM Disaster Office reports say this morning:

Extensive flooding have reported primarily over the eastern end of the island... Several landslides have occurred in the Gordon Town/Kintyre areas of upper St. Andrew... The bridge which connects the parishes of St. Thomas and St. Andrew has been damaged, rendering it impassable.

Today the storm will be moving on to the Cayman Islands [Google Map]; monitor eyewitness reports and the Grand Cayman and the Gerrard Smith airports there for observations.

The models have been impressively consistent considering it's been 3-5 days in advance of landfall. I was going to write a blog entry yesterday saying there'd be no way that Gustav would hit New Orleans, because statistically the forecasts that far out are never right for landfall. But then I watched how little the models were changing and thought: Maybe they are right. We'll see. The skeptic inside me still doubts they could pin the state of landfall this far out. But take a look at the (negligible) difference between this morning's Model Spread (06Z or 12Z) and that of two days ago.

Even if the models are consistent, the real question will be: Where *exactly* will it make landfall. Passing on one side or the other of New Orleans could make a huge difference to the city, for example, for reasons I've discussed before.

*Who's Brendan Loy?

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