Gus is interesting, but make sure you look east

Gustav will be the big story over the weekend, but please keep your eyes looking east too.

Gus made landfall on the southwestern coast of Haiti yesterday as a hurricane. He has since weakened to a tropical storm with 60 MPH winds due to land interactions. The current forecast has Gus moving along the southern Cuban coast, cross the extreme western tip of Cuba, and then essentially head for the Texas/Louisiana Gulf Coast as a major hurricane. Buy...Gas...Now...

The bigger local threat is from the broad area of low pressure several hundred miles northeast of the northern Leeward islands. This area is expected to develop later this week as the upper-level winds become more favorable in that part of the world. While most of the models recurve this system between 65 and 70 degrees west longitude (i.e., well off our coast) we do have one model that indicates a threat to our area in about 8 days. You don't need to board up now, but you do need to watch it.