Hurricane Ida: It Ain't Over Yet

Galliano, Louisiana in a shambles after Hurricane Ida.
Photo from the U.S. Coast Guard

 UPDATE 4:30 PM TUESDAY

NOAA's Weather Prediction Center has upgraded the flash flood risk to "High" in parts of the Northeast for tomorrow.

That's a rare highest level alert, especially for this part of the nation.  In other words, this area is in SERIOUS trouble from flooding due to former Hurricane Ida.

The "high" ranking means severe, widespread flash flooding is expected. Areas that normally don't flood could well do so.

The area of highest risk goes from the northeastern corner of West Virginia, through southern and parts of eastern Pennsylvania, the New York City metro area and Connecticut.

The remains of Ida are expected to hook up with a stalled weather front to dump at least four to eight inches of rain on this area in a day or less.  There could be a few pockets that get more than that, even. Eight inches of rain is twice what normally falls in a month in this area.

The impacts of this impending flood will almost certainly be worse than what happened with Henri recently. Of course, the ground is still sopping wet from that storm, which doesn't help.

In Vermont, there's a slight risk of flooding from this in the extreme south, basically south of Route 9.  At this point, areas north of that should be OK Forecasts might get updated and shifted, so stay tuned. 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Hurricane Ida reminds me a lot of Hurricane Camille in 1969.  

Camille was even worse than Ida, but the story of the two storms is turning out to be eerily similar.

Camille roared ashore as an incredible Category 5 hurricane with top winds of 175 mph on August 17, 1969 in Pass Christian, Mississippi. The storm surge was over 24 feet there, which was at the time the record highest storm surge in U.S. history. (Katrina in 2005 topped that).

After making landfall, the remains of Camille moved inland, then bent east into West Virginia and Virginia, dumping over a foot of rain, with two feet in some locations. Most of the rain fell in just a few hours, and the resulting flash floods killed 113 people in the two states. The overall death toll from  Camille was 256.

The reason I bring all this up is the remains of Hurricane Ida are heading northeast, threatening some dangerous flooding well north of its landfall in Louisiana, especially up in Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia today, and tomorrow in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the New York City metro area.

Flood watches extend in a broad band from the Florida Panhandle up through the western and central Appalachians all the way to the Middle Atlantic States and southern New England. 

I'm not saying there's going to be up to 31 inches of rain, like Camille in Virginia  back in the summer of '69.  But broad areas will have a half foot of rain or more, and theres a chance of a foot of rain in some of these spots.  The whole area under this flood threat has had a very sodden summer, so the soils are already primed for flooding.  

In other words, this could get really bad.

For my Vermont readers, we're in better shape. There's a chance that far southern Vermont could share in the flooding, we'll have to see how far north the heavy rain gets.  Forecasts vary, but for now, different sections of the Green Mountain State look like they'll get either manageable amounts of rain from the remains of Ida, or nothing at all.

This big flood threat from ex-Ida is not exactly helpful, since the hurricane caused an immense amount of damage already. 

The levees held in New Orleans, so the city didn't flood like it did during Katrina. But levees were overtopped in many other areas, so there's extensive flooding throughout southeastern Louisiana.

Wind damage is immense. Countless homes and buildings collapsed or lost roofs. The electrical grid is in shambles, and many people will need to wait a good six weeks or even more to get their power back. 

We don't have an estimated dollar amount of damage yet. That will take a lot of time to tally. Right now, they're in search and rescue mode in Louisiana. They're not ready to do the bean counting yet. 

So far there have four deaths connected to Ida, but that toll will go up. Probably sharply. 

The remains of Ida aren't the only ex-hurricane flood threat facing a part of the United States.

Hurricane Nora crashed into the west coast of northwestern Mexico over the weekend.  Lots of wet air streaming north from that storm's remains are coming into the Desert Southwest. Flash flooding is likely once again in Arizona today because of this situation.