8/29 – Rob Knight’s Sunday Evening (7 PM) HURRICANE IDA Update

The NWS Doppler radar imagery and data from an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft showed that Ida made landfall around 1655 UTC along the southeastern coast of Louisiana near Port Fourchon with estimated maximum winds of 130 kt and a minimum pressure around 930 mb.

Since that time, Ida made a second  landfall southwest of Galliano, Louisiana, and with the eyewall now onshore weakening has begun. As Ida’s circulation moves farther inland this evening and overnight a faster rate of weakening is expected, and Ida is forecast to become a tropical depression over Mississippi by late Monday.  Although weakening is forecast, damaging winds, especially in gusts, are expected to spread inland over southeastern Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi through Monday morning.

Radar fixes indicate that Ida’s forward motion has slowed and the initial motion estimate is 325/9 kt.  The hurricane should turn northward tonight around the western periphery of a deep-layer ridge near the southeastern United States coast. Ida is forecast to turn northeastward and recurve over the eastern United States as it enters the mid-latitude westerlies.