Cuban province of Granma and a hurricane watch and tropical storm warning is in place for Jamaica.

A hurricane watch remains in effect for all of the Cayman Islands. Gustav is expected to produce around 2 – 4 inches of rainfall over southern Cuba with around 6 – 12 inches expected over Haiti, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, with the possibility of causing life-threatening flash floods and mud-slides in some areas.

“Gustav looks set to make landfall early next week as it continues to intensify along its path. Forecasts suggest that it will strike on the U.S. Gulf coast on Tuesday morning, potentially as a Category 2 or 3 hurricane. However, the landfall timing all depends on the location, with a hit to the east likely to occur earlier than one to the west. The intensity will also be driven by the location and timing, and at this point is even more uncertain,” said Neena Saith, catastrophe response manager at Risk Management Solutions

“Gustav is expected to still be a Category 1 hurricane as it passes along the south coast of Jamaica and the south of Grand Cayman – unlike Ivan in 2004 which was a Category 4 when it took a very similar path and caused substantial damage to these islands from wind and storm surge. As it passes along its track Gustav will experience the optimal conditions for intensification found anywhere in the Atlantic basin at this time, with weak wind shear and the warmest sea surface temperatures,” Saith continued.

Recent reports said that at least 23 people were killed in the Caribbean, after Gustav made landfall over Haiti as a Category 1 hurricane on Aug. 26, causing landslides and extensive flooding both in Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic. According to reports, U.N. peacekeepers said that they have evacuated thousands of Haitians by boat and truck in areas affected in the continuing aftermath of the storm.

Present forecasts indicate that Gustav could enter the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane early morning on Aug. 31, with the potential for intensification into a Category 3 hurricane by early morning on Sept. 1 as Gustav approaches the US Gulf Coast.

Whilst forecasters stress that at this time, Gustav's eventual point of US landfall could be anywhere from the Florida panhandle to Texas, Gustav's present track is forecast as heading directly towards New Orleans. On Wednesday, the Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, put residents in New Orleans on alert and declared an emergency for the state, making Louisiana eligible to receive federal disaster assistance. Jindal added that 3,000 National Guard members were being deployed to vulnerable areas in the state during Thursday to assist with the provision of emergency shelters and in preparing for possible evacuations. Other officials in Louisiana have voiced concern over the condition of flood levees that have been recently rebuilt by the US Army Corps of Engineers, after the breaches that were caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

For more information, check out Guy Carpenter's HYPERLINK “http://www.guycarp.com/portalapp/publicsite/catdocument.pdf?instratreportid=1728″ Instrat Report.

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