According to catastrophe risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide, as of 7:30 am EDT, Tropical Storm Gustav is located about 80 miles east of Kingston, Jamaica. “Maximum sustained winds are estimated at near 70 mph and the storm is moving to the west-southwest at 6 mph,” said Dr. Peter Dailey, director of atmospheric science at AIR Worldwide.
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) expressed surprise when an Air Force reconnaissance plane discovered that the center of the storm had shifted considerably southward. According to the NHC, "Gustav has either reformed to the south or been moving more to the south-southwest overnight." The new forecast track takes Gustav south of Jamaica, rather than to the north between Jamaica and Cuba.
“Interaction with Haiti disrupted the storm considerably yesterday,” continued Dr. Dailey. “As of 8:00 pm Wednesday, sustained winds had dropped to just 45 mph and they remained there until early Thursday morning. In the last several hours, however, winds have picked up again. Whether they will continue to do so will depend in part on how closely the storm will hug Jamaica's south coast as it continues generally westward.”
“Once Gustav gets past Jamaica, conditions are favorable for intensification and the NHC currently expects Gustav will become a major hurricane as it moves into the southern Gulf of Mexico on Sunday. Where the storm tracks after that is still highly uncertain, as indicated by the forecast tracks of various dynamical models shown in the map below. However, all the models currently suggest that Gustav is likely to impact oil and gas production in the Gulf, where oil workers already have begun evacuating their rigs.”
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