Gustav's two ugly sisters are approaching now, with brother Ike in tow

“We got very lucky with Gustav,” he said. “It could have been another Katrina.” He explained (via Weather Nerd):

The computer models that predicted a Category 4 hurricane at landfall could easily have been correct, had the shear been a few knots less when Gustav crossed Cuba.

To borrow the mayor’s phrase, there are two more ugly sisters out in the Atlantic Ocean, heading for the United States.

clipped from thelede.blogs.nytimes.com For New Orleans, the morning after Hurricane Gustav was filled with exhales. For the folks at the National Hurricane Center, it was another day at the office — though a particularly busy day. Just as it was pushing Gustav off its plate — that storm is now just a tropical depression that can now be left to the regular weather forecasters — the hurricane center began monitoring another storm brewing just off the coast of West Africa. At first it was called Tropical Depression 10, but it took the name Josephine just a few hours later when its winds built to tropical-storm strength. As for the waning storm that prompted fears of devastation worse than Hurricane Katrina, Gustav’s winds are nothing special any more, but it has not lost its capacity to dump heavy rain and flood northern Louisiana, northeastern Texas and Arkansas, the three states in its path.