Tropical Storm Ida

Tropical Storm Ida has become the 9th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. Currently, winds are at 65 mph near the center. Ida’s forecasted path takes it inland, bringing 20″ of rain to Honduras and Nicaragua with heavy rain and mudslides being the primary threat. Ida is a tiny storm so the highest winds are trapped in a very small area. After making landfall tomorrow morning, the remnants of Ida may redevelop if it survives the high terrain and mountains of 500-750 ft in Nicaragua. Since there have been no storms in the Gulf of Mexico this year, ocean heat content and sea surface temperatures will be more than sufficient to support a hurricane in the Gulf. Wind shear is expected to remain low to moderate in both the Caribbean and Gulf for the remainder of the week. If Ida does drift in the Gulf it could get very interesting with potential impacts on the lower 48. High pressure will build back into the Gulf states early next week blocking Ida from land falling near the Gulf coast and could send Ida back into the Caribbean by a week from today. Another scenario is a cold front passes just north of Ida and deflects it to the south and Ida begins to take a northeasterly path and head out to sea. Regardless of how it plays out if Ida does redevelop there could be some impacts on the lower 48 as early as next week. Ida will probably be the worst storm of the 2009 Hurricane season.

Stay tuned.

Projected path

Satellite loop