Hurricane Gustav is another powerful hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast, so I wanted to recommend Chron science reporter Eric Berger’s SciGuy blog as the best source of hurricane information for the Gulf Coast region.

Eric and I got to know each other over the fateful weekend of August 27-28, 2005 when we each posted one of the first blog posts in the blogosphere noting the dreaded turn of Hurricane Katrina toward New Orleans during the early morning hours of Saturday, August 27. Although we both recommended that New Orleans residents seriously consider immediate evacuation, local governmental officials in New Orleans did not do so until much later. We now know the result of that misjudgment. With that disaster in mind, at least I doubt that such misjudgments will be a problem this go-around, as New Orleans lawyer Ernie Svenson explains.

Since that time, Eric has developed his blog into the go-to source in the blogosphere for information on hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. Bookmark it and check it regularly for updates on Gustav.

At this time, it looks as if Gustav will make landfall along the Louisiana coast just west of the New Orleans metropolitan area (check out this cool WSJ map that compares the projected path of Gustav with those of the deadly 2005 storms, Katrina and Rita, and this slick new MSNBC hurricane tracker). That track would put much of New Orleans in the storm’s northeastern quandrant, which is the most damaging part of the storm.

If that path holds, then post-landfall rainfall next week will be the main problem for the Houston area. The storm is expected to slow down somewhat after making landfall and become a tropical storm or depression in northwestern Louisiana and then northeastern Texas. The Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex has been in the throes of a drought for the past several months (as was Houston until the past couple of weeks or so), but that should end next week if Gustav continues its current course.