More Storms Likely Headed to the U.S., Please Be Prepared/Informed

Gustav wasn't as bad as he could have been, but many people have suffered a lot of damage. Lots of LA evacuees are still not being allowed to return home. Evacuees in TX and LA will have varying degrees of stress to deal with this week, please keep them in your thoughts.

HANNA
The tropics are just unbelievable right now! We have Tropical Storm Hanna, Tropical Storm Ike, and Tropical Storm Josephine. Tropical Storm Hanna can't decide where she wants to go. She also holds her own when conditions suggest she should be torn apart. It is said that "the location of final landfall has a much higher uncertainty than usual", but South Carolina is the "best bet" according to my favorite hurricane forecaster, Dr. Jeff Masters of www.wunderground.com. Landfall is expected to be sometime on Friday and Hannah, as of this writing, is expected to be a Category 1 hurricane at landfall.

IKE
Next up, we have Ike. Ike "has the potential to become a large and dangerous Cape Verdes-type hurricane by Sunday", according to Dr. Masters. The long-term path and intensity of Ike are greatly uncertain, partly thanks to Hanna. Some models think Ike will enter the eastern Bahamas and then follow Hannas path, continuing up to New England. At least one thinks he'll hit South Florida, and still others think a he'll head across Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico. Again, much of that depends on Hanna.

JOSEPHINE
...and then there's Josephine. She's still pretty far out, and let's hope she stays there! Maybe she'll just curve out to sea and she'll never see land. We can hope! Believe it or not, there's also a tropical wave over Africa that at least one model forecasts will develop into a storm next week.

The bottom line is, everyone needs to pay attention and stay informed.

If you're a transport coordinator, please take these sort of things into consideration when you're planning transports. Maybe look at projected landfall locations and dates to see if you should really put a lot of time and effort into a transport that shouldn't be run for safety's sake. Personally, I wouldn't count on a run through FL, GA, SC, or NC this coming weekend. TN, KY, and other states could see some good inland flooding, too. I'm not a forecaster, and even the forecasters aren't saying that and don't know where anything is going right now, it's just something to consider and something that is common with land-falling hurricanes.