For folks on Florida’s west coast, the development of Hurricane Gustav so far has pretty much been a spectator sport. There is the scary prospect of a Category 3 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico by the weekend, but we were nicely outside the hurricane center’s cone of what could be hit.

High pressure over Florida and the Bahamas was keeping Gustav out in the Gulf, and even with the potential error in the center’s five-day forecast of 300 miles in any direction, we were still far enough away.

But with that high pressure weakening slightly, suddenly that cone touches the Tampa Bay area.

According to the Storm Team 8 weather folks, that might continue until around Friday, so be prepared to possibly see a bit more of the west coast inside that unpopular cone.

But another, stronger high-pressure area is supposed to build in, so that could be enough to keep Gustav off our shore. Of course, once in the Gulf the storm becomes a bad day for someone.

There’s also an indication from some models that the replacement high could be strong enough to disrupt Gustav’s development, which may be why some of the intensity models, and the hurricane center for now, are forecasting Gustav’s winds to level off at 120 mph from Saturday through Monday.

That could also be because intensity forecasts 72 hours or longer in the future are notoriously subject to being wrong.

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