HDGator wrote:Ixolib wrote:In terms of surge potential:
Katrina was a cat 5/4 in the Gulf and was HUGE. Widespread surge.
Camille was a cat 5/4 in the Gulf and was SMALL. Comparatively smaller surge.
How does Gustav's size - or potential size - compare to Camille and Katrina?
Small and tight or huge and wide?????
Wasn't it Katrina's overall size that caused the historical surge issue in MS?
It's pretty odd to see Camille referred to as SMALL and Comparatively smaller... but understanding what you went through with Katrina I can see the comparison.
I believe that you have hit the nail on the head regarding judging the potential surge impact of Gustav. I agree with you that the combination of the size and intensity combines to create the worse impacts. It will be interesting to compare over the next 24-36 hours how the size and intensity of the windfield for Gustav compares with Katrina. That will probably have more bearing on the eventual surge that is seen at landfall rather than the actual landfall intensity. As we saw with Katrina, a late weakening didn't have a corresponding reduction in the surge impacts.
What tools do we have available to judge these developments over the next 24-36 hours?
I'd say by monitoring data buoy readings as some distance from Gustav. That should give a pretty good predictive measure based upon winds speeds and wave heights. The actual surge will be achieved by the squeezing of all that water in motion between the winds of Gustav and the coast, except that even a sharp dropoff in wind speed late will have little effect or surge. Surge subsides quite a few hours behind drops in intensity of major hurricanes.
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