With the remnants of Fay almost upon us, it is now time to turn our attention to another Tropical Storm...Gustav.  Although Fay might not provide us with the kind of rain some folks were hoping for, she has provided some parts of the country with some beneficial rainfall.  Gustav may do more than that unfortunately.  I want to show you the Atlantic overview from the National Hurricane Center.

Notice that in addition to Gustav there are two other areas of concern.  The orange highlighted area shows medium potential for tropical cyclone development, while the yellow highlighted area shows low potential for tropical cyclone development.  Gustav is the main focus right now because the storm is expected to intensify to hurricane status and cross into Gulf waters this weekend.  Here is the latest forecasted track for Gustav from the National Hurricane Center:

Keep in mind that this is just a projected path.  We will certainly keep our eye on things to see if they change over the weekend.  At this point, the National Hurricane Center is predicting that Gustav will enter the Gulf sometime on Saturday.  This means that the storm will have all of Sunday and most of Monday to feed on the warm waters.  It appears right now that landfall could come as early as Labor Day.  Where will it make landfall, if it does?  Right now, that is anybody's guess.  The forecasted cone shows landfall could occur anywhere from Louisiana to the west coast of Florida.  The main point of this discussion is not to focus on where Gustav might land at this point, but instead just to point out that this storm does indeed need to be monitored. 

This model shows the United States as it may look next Monday afternoon.  Notice where Gustav is located.  This projection seems to favor a Florida/Georgia/Alabama solution.  Again, this is five days out and only a projection.  Nonetheless, Gustav looks to be a rather interesting tropical cyclone and one that could definiately have an impact for the Gulf states.  It could also impact the rest of us if oil prices spike due to the threatening locale of the storm.  Stay tuned through the rest of the week and into the weekend to get the very latest on this situation.  Until next time, have a great Wednesday!