Date here good evening everybody.
I'm meteorologist Jesse
who we live with WFAA.
We want to give you the latest seven
o'clock update here on Ida hurricane
warnings in effect for the southern
Louisiana Coast tropical storm warnings.
Outside of that,
really haven't been many changes in the
forecast intensity or or speed or anything,
or track of Ida the very latest here it is.
It's really starting to develop
rapidly and strengthen rapidly in
these very warm Gulf of Mexico waters.
This is the last six hour loop you can see.
It's getting pretty close to land.
It's still a category 2.
At this hour,
with winds of 105 miles an hour
moving northwest at 1516 rather
so it's just about 285 miles
southeast of the coast of Louisiana,
and that is where it's expected
to make landfall.
And again, it's right now sitting
in extremely warm water.
Water is 85 to close to 90 degrees.
That's jet fuel or high intensity fuel for
these hurricanes to develop even further.
They'll deep in,
they'll strengthen,
and that's what we expect.
We expect the 10:00 o'clock.
Update to show a category three hurricane,
which is considered a major hurricane.
All it has to do is strengthen the winds
of 110 miles an hour and it's there.
It's really, really close.
So we're expecting landfall
sometime tomorrow afternoon.
Maybe as late as tomorrow evening,
depending on the exact speed
we're talking between 12:00 and
6:00 PM somewhere in that range
will have landfall of a category.
Four hurricane winds expected
to be 130 mph at landfall.
Right now,
it looks like the center of this
will go just West. Of New Orleans.
That puts it in a pretty
dangerous spot there.
You know,
the northeast quadrant of hurricanes,
the most dangerous.
That's The Dirty side of the storm.
So big time storm surge flooding,
rains, devastating winds of
130 plus mph in the forecast.
Here's what it's going to look like.
Notice they'll start seeing Ray.
I mean,
they're already seeing some of the outer
bands bring rain to the Gulf Coast.
The rain will just get more widespread
and heavy as we get into tomorrow,
especially afternoon and evening.
That's when it's the worst of
it across southern Louisiana,
the worst will continue.
I mean it's going to be a bad hurricane all
the way through Sunday night into Monday.
It'll start to alleviate,
at least for Louisiana.
Heavy rain will continue up
into the Tennessee and Ohio
valleys as we head into Tuesday,
Monday night into Tuesday could still
even be a tropical storm as it moves
into parts of Mississippi and Southeast
Arkansas 10 to 15 inches of rain,
some isolated higher totals.
That's the bullseye of heaviest
rain in southeast Louisiana,
so flooding rain for New Orleans
over to Baton Rouge 5 to 10 inches of
rain for a good chunk of Mississippi.
That is also going to cause flooding
flooding potential for this entire state,
so big problems there across Mississippi.
The Deep South, even the Florida Panhandle.
Seeing tons of rain to this area.
The other problem that we have here,
it's not just the immense amount of rain
that obviously is going to cause problems.
This area has very saturated soils.
They've seen rain.
They haven't had any sort of
deficit and a lot of rain recently,
so you're adding 1015 inches of
rain on top of saturated soils.
That will just increase the
flooding potential for these areas.
Shaded in dark green,
so that becomes another concern
for the Deep South.
And of course as it makes landfall and it
gets closer we see increase in storm surge.
Now storm surge.
Basically what happens is the
intense winds of this hurricane
will shift ocean water inland.
That's exactly what's happening.
It's just pushing 6 to 9 feet of where
maybe the normal tide would be that
starts to push up 6 to 9 feet in this area.
Here 10 to 15 feet.
That's where it's expected to Max out.
That will be South of New Orleans
right now from Lake born over to Lake
Pontchartrain and toward New Orleans.
Here it's looking like it could
be 7 to 11 feet.
That's not quite as high
as it was with Katrina,
so that's a bit of good news.
Because of how this is coming in that
may reduce may comparatively reduce
the storm surge compared to Katrina,
'cause you know I'd is expected to kind of
come in with a more north westerly component.
Katrina kind.
What do north and that allowed the winds to
kind of fetch into this area and it really
increased the storm surge for New Orleans,
so will keep an eye on this storm.
Surges is a huge danger
for the coastal areas.
Now we've talked about the
different scales we, you know,
the different categories.
The Saffer Simpson scale must step out of
the way and show you what's the difference
between a category 1234 and five.
Is it linear?
It's actually not.
It's actually exponentially
worse the higher you get.
So with the category one,
you have wins 74 to 95 mph.
You see minimal damage with cat ones.
Nonetheless,
you're going to see damage tree damage,
light, maybe roof damage,
or siding damage.
Then a cat to you start to see
extensive damage 'cause wins.
Can hit up to 110 miles an hour,
which right now is really
close to where Ida is.
We expect idea to become a cat 3,
which is considered a major hurricane
here with the next update in three hours,
that's winds in excess of 110
miles an hour up to 129.
You'll see devastating damage with this.
Lots of tree damage,
power line damage,
home damage is well than a cat four
substantially worse winds of 130 to 156.
You could see catastrophic damage
with hurricanes of this magnitude.
And that's what's expected to make landfall.
Tomorrow afternoon in Louisiana
is a category four and I'll
be on the lower end of
that scale nonetheless,
still catastrophic damage possible.
And of course CAT5 or
just the absolute worst.
You don't see those very
often making landfall.
That's winds of 157 plus,
and that causes catastrophic damage
in wherever it would make landfall.
Bad storm surge, damaging winds,
and we're expecting that with
Ayda 130 mile an hour plus winds
in this area shaded in red,
so anywhere from Lafayette,
Baton Rouge, New Orleans,
all this entire coast.
Of Louisiana will see winds of
130 plus and then just outside of
that even that look 94 to 1:30 on
the outskirts of that I mean even
all the way over close to Buloxi
could see up to 93 mile per hour.
Wind gusts so pretty wide
swath of damaging winds,
because idea will be so large
when it makes its way inland.
So again,
just kind of recapping here at
the Seven O'clock update from
the National Hurricane Center,
Ida is still a category two
with winds of 105.
It is almost a category three
strength you can actually see
the eye starting to become.
A little bit more well defined pressure
has dropped down to 969 millibars.
That is a sign of a strengthening storm,
and it is now about 200 miles
South of the Mississippi River,
so getting very close to land we
expect landfall tomorrow afternoon.
Make sure you stay with us here
at WFAA on all of our social media
and web digital channels will
have the latest updates for you.
For the rest of the night.