August 31, 2008: If you want to track a Hurricane, here's a tool that will help.  The site consolidates information from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. and publishes a storm tracker.  Gustav has taken a strange path through the Gulf.  Fortunately, it's now accelerating, meaning that it's spending less time over the warm Gulf waters which help it gather strength.  Landfall is now forecast for September 1; almost the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  Gustav should hit the coast of Louisiana just west of New Orleans.

Storms are tracked from a number of sources, including satellite imagery, land-based weather stations and aircraft that fly into the eye of the storm to take barometric pressure measurements.  The lower the pressure in the eye of a hurricane and the more compact the structure of the nucleus of the storm, the more likely it is to generate damaging winds.  Most damage is typically done on the northeastern edge of the storm.  Hurricanes rapidly lose strength as the make landfall; typically, extensive damage is caused by the winds, which for a Category 5 hurricane, can exceed 150 miles per hour.  If a hurricane is weaker, it can still cause extensive damage; for example, if a storm slows once it makes landfall, it can cause severe damage through flooding.