I have been lurking for a few years reading the info on this site and have always wondered something, which may be coming into play with Gustav. Gustav has been a fairly small and compact storm from it's birth, yet I believe it is starting to grow in size even though it is getting weaker over land. Was wondering if any mets could chime in and comment on whethere land interaction could aid in the growth of a storm's size at times. My theory is that the compact storm gets disrupted, thus causing the wind field to expand. Once back over water it may take a bit more time to consolidate again, but could make the storm grow in size?

Point I am trying to make is..if Haiti or Cuba does not kill the storm, it may actually make it bigger. A bigger storm could cause the models to change.

I may be way off track, but we are all trying to learn here.