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UPDATE 7/1 12:21pm PST: Gustav weakened to a category 2 storm right before making landfall west of New Orleans. It appears that the worst-case scenarios were thankfully avoided. The New Orleans levees have held so far and as the Houston Chronicle reports, "Hurricane Gustav appears to have spared energy operations in the Gulf of Mexico and onshore infrastructure today as it traversed the offshore oil patch and rolled into Louisiana."

UPDATE 6/31 4:31pm PST: The latest NOAA advisory has Gustav making landfall as a very strong Category 3 hurricane with winds of about 125 miles per hour. There is considerable variability between the various forecasting models, but it seems clear that the storm will hit land "as a mjaor hurricane." For excellent on-the-ground updates from New Orleans, follow @GustavReporter, a Chicago Tribue correspondent, and keep your eye on the Red Cross blog for the hurricane.

UPDATE 6/31 10:15am PST: Gustav continues its up-and-down trajectory, weakening slightly after blasting Cuba. Right now, the storm is still heading straight for Louisiana, with most of the weather models projecting landfall a bit east of New Orleans . The latest National Hurricane Center forecast, posted at 8 AM Pacific time, strikes a tone of uncertainty about how strong Gustav will be at landfall. "At the risk of sounding like a broken record," the forecasters write, "the intensity forecast remains problematic." The weather models are not in agreement about the impact the storm could have, but the NHC is doing its best to come up with a plausible scenario. "The intensity forecast will call for Gustav to re-intensify to [133 miles per hour] in 12 to 24 hours…" and make landfall on the northern Gulf Coast as a major hurricane." That’d make Gustav a borderline Category 4 hurricane, which is a slight weakening from previous projections. The good news is courtesy of Cuba slowing Gustav down, as the forecasters wrote early this morning, "The interaction with western Cuba took more of a toll on the hurricane than earlier estimated."

UPDATE 8/30 6:30pm: Gustav is now a category 5 hurricane and it’s barreling straight for Louisiana. Mayor Ray Nagin has ordered the evacuation of New Orleans and called Gustav "the mother of all storms." Gustav has become a much bigger, much stronger hurricane than the consensus prediction even 24 hours ago. It now has sustained winds of over 155 miles per hour and could bring major devastation to Louisiana. For live updates from the crowd, keep your eye on the Ning group for Hurricane Gustav.

Storm surge maps developed by a insurance risk management firm show that Tropical Storm Gustav, if it continues strengthening, could have a devastating impact wherever it hits along the Gulf Coast.



Provided to Wired Science by First American Proxix Solutions, it’s important to note that these maps show the worst case scenario for storm surge. With some luck — such as the storm hitting at low-tide — the Gulf Coast will be able to avoid these scenarios.

Red areas are at extreme risk of being hit by a storm surge, no matter how weak the hurricane ends up. Green areas are only likely to be affected if Gustav becomes a much stronger hurricane than is currently forecast. The model that created the maps has a resolution of 30 meters and takes into account natural and human barriers to the water. It was developed to support insurance underwriting.

The first map shows southern Louisiana from New Orleans to the east all the way to the Texas border. Similar maps for the Houston and Galveston areas are provided after the jump. These maps generated back in April.

The video shows the potential impact of storm surge in the city of New Orleans.

See Also:

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter , Google Reader feed, and webpage; Wired Science on Facebook.