Today Ida was upgraded to a hurricane. With exceptionally warm water in the Gulf of Mexico, there is a high potential that the storm may reach a category 4 major hurricane before it makes landfall in Louisiana west of New Orleans. That will put NOLA in the right front quadrant of the storm as it is coming onshore. This is one of the worst cases possible for New Orleans, since the winds will be stronger than Katrina’s winds at landfall, although the storm surge is expected to be less. I expect to see and hear a lot about damage from Louisiana after the storm passes, and I expect to hear sad stories of deaths and significant losses. Tough enough to weather even without a pandemic ravaging hospitals across the path of the storm. Other parts of the Southeast may see evacuees come to their regions as they leave Louisiana.
The storm’s predicted path is narrowing now that it is well organized, and it looks like the brunt of the impacts will be felt in Mississippi and Alabama. Large parts of Georgia will be far enough away from the center of the storm that we should see more limited impact, and some areas will receive much less than an inch of rain, especially in the southeast. Northern Georgia could still see a couple of inches of rain as the residual tropical depression moves through the area early to mid-week on its way through North Carolina and Virginia. None of the models are currently showing a chance of the center moving into Georgia, although there is still time for the predictions to change somewhat.
