A very happy birthday to Hurricane Katrina:
It's unclear how bad a hit Gustav is going to be. It certainly looks a lot less ominous than Katrina did 24 hours before landfall, but things can change. Jeff Master's blog on Weather Underground is just as informative as it was three years ago:
NHC's current storm surge forecast calls for a storm surge of 12-16 feet to the right of where the center of Gustav comes ashore. The latest computer generated storm surge map shows that highest surge will be along the levee system along the east side of New Orleans. Storm surge levels of this magnitude are characteristic of a Category 3 to 4 hurricane. The levee system of New Orleans is designed to withstand a storm surge characteristic of a Category 3 storm. If the NHC storm surge forecast verifies, there is a significant threat of multiple levee failures in the New Orleans levee system resulting in flooding of portions of the city. The latest 06Z (2 am EDT) model runs have shifted their landfall points a bit further west, slightly reducing the odds of a Category 4 storm surge in New Orleans. My best guess is that New Orleans will suffer a Category 3-level storm surge. Let's hope that the Army Corps of Engineers' assertion that the levee system can withstand a Category 3-level storm surge is correct.
With a hurricane bearing down on New Orleans, the biggest unknown isn't the track path or intensity of the storm, but the state of the levee system of that city, which may be just as inadequate as it was three years ago. Regardless of the storm's ultimate impact, that's an unbelievable failure
