Here’s the latest and greatest updates from the National Hurricane Center as well as the National Weather Service in New Orleans. New Orleans has already had a few “squalls” (AKA bands of rain) hit the downtown area with 44mph wind gusts and it hasn’t even officially hit New Orleans yet.

As of 10:00pm CST, the forecasted track is for New Orleans to be in the “right quadrant” of the hurricane, which is NOT where you want to be (the storm surge and winds are more destructive to the east of the hurricane’s eye).

As of 10:05pm CST, the storm is 400 miles wide (yes, 400 miles!), winds are up to 115mph (Category 3 storm) and is expected to slam into the US by Monday morning (9am to 12:00pm). The remains of the hurricane are expected to literally flood East Texas to Dallas, TX.

The forecasted track of Gustav remains the same as earlier, however it’s important to know that a hurricane has a mind of its own and can and will change direction often and without much notice.

More to come tomorrow morning… it’s been a long, long day and I’m exhausted. Hopefully, the three of you who read this will gain some education/awareness from it. GOOD NIGHT!

Previous Updates/Radar/Graphics of Gustav

If you’re anything like me, you find flying on a plane nerve-wracking and exhausting. Well, what about a loved one flying? I find I get the same emotions: Dear Lord, please let him/her have a safe flight… Will his/her plane be ok… and where is her/his flight as we speak?

Well, thanks to two awesome websites, you can track a flight in real time with GPS. It’s truly phenomenal.

Flytecomm.com and Flightstats.com will allow you to track any US/Canadian flight in real time and both sites will show you the plane’s current elevation, current speed and current time-to-land status. This defnitely keeps my worrying at bay! Here are two quick demos to show you. I’m about to pick up my loved one in an hour so I thought what better way to show a real-world example?

As usual, watching in full screen may be easier to see…