Hurricane Ida As Bad As It Gets

Hurricane Ida had its expected burst of rapid intensification overnight and early this morning and at last report early this morning, it had top winds of 145 mph. 

Extreme Hurricane Ida on approach to Louisiana
early this morning. 

Oops. It's still strengthening rapidly as I write this at 7 a.m.. Top winds are now 150 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. 

Conditions were already going downhill fast along the Louisiana coast and it will just get worse and worse as the day goes on. 

Everything about this is just beyond awful.  The storm surge near and just west of the mouth of the Mississippi River will be up to 16 feet. Large areas of the coastline in Louisiana and Mississippi should expect to see storm surges of six to 12 feet.

I hate to say it, but anybody who didn't evacuate from the large low lying areas where these storm surges are to hit will probably die. It's almost impossible to survive that. 

I worry about the people who didn't evacuate, either because they didn't have the transportation, money or means to go or because they were stubborn.  I hope everybody got out, and I hope there's still nobody stuck in gridlocked traffic as they tried to escape, as everything heading out of the hurricane zone yesterday was a parking lot.

Here's what the National Weather Service in New Orleans wrote last night. It's about as strong a message as you can send.  

"Once sustained tropical force winds move in first responders will button down and YOU WILL BE ON YOUR OWN.  Please understand this, there is the possibility that conditions could be unlivable along the coast for some time and areas around New Orleans and Baton Rouge could be without power for weeks. 

We have all seen the destruction and pain caused by Harvey, Michael and Laura. Anticipate devastation on this level and if it doesn't happen we should all count our blessings. Please again if you have the means to leave and you are 1. in a mandatory or voluntary evacuation zone, LEAVE. 2. are in  a very flood prone area, LEAVE. 3. are uncomfortable and have trees around your house, LEAVE."   

Most hurricane victims drown, either because of the storm surge or due to inland flooding.

There will be huge inland flooding, with up to two feet of rain forecast.  After it comes ashore, the remains of Ida could cause dangerous flooding in the coming days all the way up to Pennsylvania and possibly southern New England.

But that's down the road.  For today and this evening, the National Weather Service in New Orleans is warning residents of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and nearby areas to expect winds of over 110 mph, with 10 to as much as 20 inches of rain.   Those storm surges will inundate wide areas, include heavily populated areas around Lake Pontchartrain.

Basically, the storm surge will be as bad or nearly as bad as Katrina in 2005. And the winds will be quite a bit stronger than in Katrina when it made landfall.

That is all incredibly dangerous. And will be incredibly destructive and deadly.  I, and everybody else, is dreading this. 

Hurricane Ida will come ashore later today.  It's still in a healthy environment, so it could strengthen more.  Even if some miracle happens and Ida starts to weaken now, it's too little, too late. 

Ida is an incredibly strong, self sustaining hurricane, so anything that can weaken it - dry air entrainment from inland, an eye wall replacement cycle, or unexpected upper level winds  - won't come fast enough to prevent Ida from being a powerful, incredibly dangerous hurricane at landfall, even if top winds fall from their current screaming levels.

And, as noted, the hurricane could actually strengthen further. 

By the way, the eye wall replacement cycle, for those uninitiated, is when the strongest storms immediately around the eye die off to be replaced by another circle of intense storms around the eye that's a little larger. This can weaken the top winds of a hurricane some, but also increase the area raked by the strongest winds.

It's unclear whether Ida will go through this cycle before landfall or not.  I'm guessing not. This eye wall replacement nonsense I just wrote about won't matter much anyway. This is going to be rough, to say the least. A tragic day in American history. As if we haven't had enough of them lately.