Ida is now a hurricane again.

Ida has reached category 2 hurricane status as of 1 pm EST. Winds near center are up to 105 mph its moving NW at 10 mph. Ida has been the ONLY November hurricane to make landfall in an El Nino year since 1925!!! Ida may make a landfall anywhere on the Gulf coast from New Orleans to Florida panhandle. There is A LOT of uncertainty as to where Ida will head in 5 days due to many factors: southern stream energy, ridge in southeast, non tropical low in Gulf, cold front swooping SE, increasing shear, and finally cooler water temperatures in the Gulf. Many models depict Ida missing a landfall on the Gulf coast as an EXTRATROPICAL storm(losing tropical characteristics) due to the ridge breaking down in the southeast. This would allow Ida to veer more northeast then southeast. Looking at Ida on current projected path and satellite, you could conclude Ida is behaving like a projectile going straight up then shooting back down. That is what the current projected path looks like. Other scenarios would be Ida DOES not make a last minute right turn and hits the Gulf coast straight on. Which means ridge in southeast is stronger than the cold front and associated southern stream energy. If Ida heads further west and takes the western path of the forecast cone then the remnants of Ida will impact the East coast next weekend with rain. On the other hand, if Ida takes the more eastern track assuming ridge can’t hold its ground Ida could get absorbed by the cold front then get lifted northward by the trough and re-develop well offshore as a coastal low bringing frozen precipitation to the NE and Canada by next weekend. In conclusion, Ida’s path is very unusual and will be a challenge to predict its track regardless of path taken.

Stay tuned…

Projected path:

Model guidance forecasted path:

Satellite loop: