Sunday Hurricane Gustav Model, Buoy, Nagin Update

UPDATE (10:45 AM): Waves are now over 30 feet at the buoy, which is just to the Northeast of Gustav's eye.

UPDATE: I added comments on Mayor Nagin's questionable speech below. Over 1,000,000 (1 million) people are estimated to have already fled the Gulf Coast.

ORIGINAL REPORT:

Good Sunday morning. Things are really cranking at Buoy #42003 this morning (67 mph winds and 21.7-foot waves), which is not even all that close to the center of Category 3 Hurricane Gustav (see map below). Here are the current graphs of wind and waves from Buoy #42003, so this will update as the day goes on, though the storm's maximum intensity should be past the buoy this morning.

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

The storm is not looking very good on satellite this morning, clearly weakened from its trip over Cuba and other meteorological reasons, but it is passing over the Gulf Loop Current right now, and that may fuel the storm for rapid intensification later today.

Since several of you asked, there has been a slight shift east in the Model Spreads (looking at the archive link) during the last 24 hours. AccuWeather.com Professional's Joe Bastardi [BIO] (PRO USERS READ NOW | 30-DAY FREE TRIAL) said in his blog last night:

Here's a shot of wind, pressure and satellite from AccuWeather.com RadarPlus:

And now to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's speech last night, which said, in part (you can see the video at right in the video player):

Sure, we need to get the serious nature of evacuation across to the masses, and the media probably needs to exaggerate things to make people pay attention. But, for the record, I can't believe that NWS made this baseless claim, and they shouldn't have because the storm never made it to a Category 5 storm, of which there have been 31, so (at the time when he gave the speech) Hurricane Gustav might not have even been in the Top 50. As they say "Ignorance is no excuse for the law," and it's not an excuse for media exaggeration either.

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