Fay hung out for a day and a half for us here near Ft Lauderdale, nothing serious with damage but I think she was a good wake up call for us.  She tested systems, infrastructure, and cleaned out a lot of weaker brush. My company noticed a few holes in our emergency response team plans so they’re being patched up now and a couple of stores sprung some leaks, overall damage in my area was minimal. My weather station recorded a maximum sustained wind in the upper 30MpH range (I think it was 39?) and a gust in the mid 40s, nothing to severe but we did get 6.5″ of rain from the storm, which was much needed. Up north, though, around Jacksonville, St Augustine, etc.. I heard that there has been some bad flooding. Hopefully things are improving up there.

The big story / storm right now is hurricane Gustav, a monstrous category 4 storm that is expected to become this season’s first category 5 hurricane.

As you can see, his track is set to take him over extreme western Cuba tonight and then accellerate as he heads for our gulf coast, potentially Louisiana near the Texas border but he could hit New Orleans and we could have a repeat of Katrina. I really hope that people in that area are heeding warnings and are spending today securing their homes and getting out long before the storm hits.

We are also keeping a close eye on tropical storm Hanna.

She is heading to the Bahamas over the course of the next two to four days and then it now looks like she might head towards south Florida..

NOAA is also monitoring a strong storm system over the Cape Verde islands off of the coast of Africa. This system has the high potential to become a tropical depression over the next day or so. Luckily, nothing has formed too quickly or strongly over the Atlantic.

So it looks like right now that conditions are only favorable for fast and strong development over the north-western Caribbean Sea and in the Gulf of Mexico. Systems in this area should be closely monitored though the rest of the season.