Hurricane Ida continues to move across the southeastern Gulf of Mexico and it is expected to intensify before reaching the northern Gulf Coast on Sunday.
Ida grew into a Category 1 hurricane Friday afternoon as it made landfall along Cuba’s Isle of Youth, the National Hurricane Center said.
Storm surge, hurricane and tropical storm warnings have been issued for the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts. For now, projections have Ida making landfall in Louisiana and western Mississippi, according to the NHC’s 7 a.m. update.
If that forecast holds true, Ida would hit 16 years to the day since Hurricane Katrina landed as a Category 3 storm with 125 mph (201 kph) winds near the riverside community of Buras in Plaquemines Parish, just down the Mississippi from New Orleans, according to the Associated Press.
A U.S. Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter aircraft identified Ida’s maximum sustained winds had intensified from 45 mph to 75 mph Friday, said the National Hurricane Center. Ida now holds winds of 85 mph as it moves northwest at 16 mph and has hurricane-force winds extending up to 26 miles from the center.
The ninth named storm of the season formed into a tropical storm Thursday evening and is about 385 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and 440 miles of New Orleans, Lousiana.
Ida’s formation is atypical and early as the ninth storm of the year on average doesn’t form before Oct. 4, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric records. Although the early formation does seem to fall in line with the NOAA’s pre-season hurricane prediction of experiencing an above-average production of storms.
On the forecast track, the center of Ida will move over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico today and over the north-central Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, the NHC said.
Projections show Ida making landfall along Louisiana’s coast, but forecasters believe Ida could bring a dangerous storm surge to the Pelican State as well as Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle Sunday and Monday.
“Ida is expected to be an extremely dangerous major hurricane when it reaches the coast of Louisiana,” NHC specialist Jack Beven said. “Hurricane-force winds are expected Sunday in portions of the Hurricane Warning area along the Louisiana coast, including metropolitan New Orleans, with potentially catastrophic wind damage possible where the core of Ida moves onshore.”
Many concerned with Louisiana’s coast have begun sounding alarm bells for coastal residents as the potential for a major hurricane threat lingers closer, said Eric Blake, a hurricane scientist out of Colorado State University.
“You can’t ask for a worse recipe for a destructive hurricane,” Blake said on Twitter.” Not much shear, and a track right up the deepest, very warm water (using ocean heat content). There is extremely serious high-end hurricane potential here!”
Other groups are also urging caution such as the Canjun Navy Ground Force, which gained national attention in 2017 after Hurricane Harvey brought deep flood waters to parts of Texas and Louisiana. The volunteer group performed water rescues for those who didn’t evacuate using their volunteer privately owned boats.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell ordered in a Friday press conference the evacuation of everyone living outside the levee system that protects the area from flooding. But she did not say how many people lived there, but urged residents with medical conditions and other special needs to get out early. Cantrell also indicated that a volunteer evacuation should took place in the rest of the parish.
“Volunteer evacuation, now is the time to start,” Cantrell said.
The NHC issued a Storm Surge Watch for much of the Gulf Coast including from Sabine Pass, Texas to the Alabama-Florida border.
As for Florida, meteorologists are not concerned with a surprise turn to the east, said Spectrum News 13 meteorologist Chris Gilson.
“It’s not coming to Central Florida,” he said. “With respect to Louisiana, the models have been doing an excellent job honing in on the southern coast of Louisiana, and the models have not shifted much since the start. It’s been very consistent.”
Gilson did say one surprise could occur in Ida’s strength. The storm will be intensifying in warm water before landfall and is anticipated to gain strength teetering on category 4.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it did make that jump, but it is too early to tell.”
Meanwhile, the NHC is also monitoring several system with potential to become tropical storms including an elongated broad trough of low pressure producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms about 820 miles east of Leeward Islands.
Tropical Depression Ten, which is now moving north-northwest at 7 mph, is likely to become a tropical storm later today with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph as it enters a favorable Atlantic zone.
Also, a tropical wave several hundred miles east of the Lesser Antilles is booming with disorganized thunderstorms. Meteorologists are much more confident in the disturbance’s development into a tropical depression in the next two days.
The NHC gave it a 80% chance of development over the next two to five days.
Finally, the NHC expects a new tropical wave to emerge of the west African coast by the middle of next week, the center said. Development could be possible toward the end of next week when the system moves into a more favorable environment. The wave has a 30% chance of forming in five days.
After Ida, the next three tropical storm names on the list are Julian, Kate and Larry.
Jpedersen@orlandosentinel.com
