Gustav, another Ernesto?

Think back Floridians. August 31st, 2006. The former hurricane Ernesto was making landfall on the southernmost tip of Florida. Ernesto worked it's way through the Caribbean and finally became a minimal hurricane with a very small inner core which interacted with the island of Haiti. Sounding like deja vu all over again?

Gustav was touted by the media today as a storm which went from Tropical Depression status to Hurricane in 15 hours, but in reality, and in the politically correct world of the NHC, it didn't. Gustav was most likely a depression on Sunday and the "massive deepening" of this storm didn't really happen, then again, "killer storms" make news. Local mets are already calling for Category 4 entering the Gulf on Sunday. Local Ft Myers weather folks are rejoicing as "we are out of the cone". West Florida mets only give beach forecasts, will it be a good beach day? And granted, when they are only given 4 minutes to give the weather, they can't really get into a deep discussion about other features around the storm which might affect the eventual path. Then again,the vast majority of the public wouldn't understand what they were talking about anyway.
I believe it's only because of the advent of the internet that weatherfolks are forced to show the pasta path, as I call it, with the model projections.

The majority of the models are showing Gustav moving westward, south of Cuba, rounding the western tip of the island and then trending NW into the southern GOM. And while I believe at the current time, (5:23 pm Tuesday, 8-26-08) this would make the most sense, I'm not sold on this track until I see this storm pass completely underneath the eastern tip of Cuba.

I mentioned Ernesto for a reason. He was very much the same in configuration with Gustav. Small centers of intense circulation, and then the interaction with the Graveyard of Hurricanes, Haiti. Fay survived mowing right over the island because it was a developing system and the MLC and LLC were not attached while Fay traversed the island. However, Gustav was well developed, and just like Ernesto, has suffered some loss in strength from interaction with Haiti.
The minimum central pressure has now increased after a drop for 12 straight hours.

The 1800Z model runs were starting to show some models trending back towards the right.
The official track from the NHC shows the intensity increasing to Category 3 Hurricane strength by the weekend. I believe the next 24-30 hours track of Gustav are going to be critical. If he makes another landfall on the eastern tip of Cuba, it will be a weaker system. The large ULL over the Bahamas then might become the main player in the system and then all bets are off.
If Gustav does hit Cuba and head towards Florida, I believe it to be nothing more than a strong Tropical Storm and a major rainmaker, as if we need anymore rain right now.

Right now, my opinion is, I think there is a 60% chance of Gustav surviving and following somewhere along the 72 hour forecast track. On the flip side,I believe there is a chance of a disrupted Gustav coming further NW and hitting Cuba and the ultimately being influenced by the ULL and eventually pulled into South Florida. The next 30 hours will tell the tale. What I found most interesting today was the fact the NHC was forecasting a major hurricane to enter into the GOM at the start of next week, and the oil market responded by a raise of 1.00 a barrel. In late June, if someone looked wrong at a pipeline in Nigeria or there was a longshoreman rumor of a possible strike, oil rose 4.00 in a matter of minutes. Perhaps it is demand destruction in oil or then again, the oil companies pay for some of the best meteos in the US to forecast the weather for them.