Good Saturday evening everybody.
I'm meteorologist Jesse Wheela here at WFAA.
Let's get you the latest on Hurricane Ida.
Right now we have hurricane warnings in
effect for a huge chunk of southern
Louisiana from Lafayette over to
Baton Rouge in New Orleans as well.
So this is where the hurricane
conditions are expected and right now
and it's becoming more well defined.
Hurricane Ida is sitting at a
category two strength. There it is.
The eye starting to really come
together nicely right here.
We've been watching satellite
loops over the last several hours.
The eye has been a little
bit will say unclean or not.
Well, well defined.
It's starting to kind of
scour that out a little bit,
which means it will intensify
rapidly over the next 12 hours.
So still a category two is
of the 10:00 o'clock update.
We expect this to be a category
four by early Sunday morning,
and winds will be in excess of 125,
close to 130 miles an hour.
So right now, though,
105 mile an hour winds still moving to
the northwest around 16 miles an hour.
It's 235 miles southeast of Houma, LA.
So let's take a look at the latest track.
There's the category two,
and there's the four by early
tomorrow morning with winds of 130
miles an hour landfall on Sunday,
expected in the afternoon.
So we've paused the clock UCS 2:00 PM here.
It'll be sometime around 1-2,
maybe three o'clock before
officially makes landfall,
when the center moves inland.
Notice the slight push to the east.
It's moved ever so slightly to the east,
so the centering of this of this system
may very well impact New Orleans.
A little bit more than initially expected.
There's that curve to the northeast,
so New Orleans sitting in a very
bad spot for this hurricane winds of
seven up to 100 mph at 7:00 o'clock
Sundays at weekends to a category two
still a strong hurricane at that point.
And then as it lifts off to the north,
it starts to weaken.
Still a tropical storm and parts of
Mississippi than a depression and
very heavy rain off into the Midwest.
So there's your track again.
Landfall is the four sometime
Sunday afternoon.
Here's a look at what we're expecting.
There comes the rain.
Very heavy rain into Sunday afternoon
and evening, flooding rain.
Damaging storm surge damaging wind gust.
This is just a bad situation
for southern Louisiana,
Mississippi as well as as Ida
continues its March to the north,
so 10 to 15 inches of rain
still in the forecast from Baton
Rouge down through New Orleans.
There will be isolated spots that
see up to 20 inches of rain,
5 to 10 inches widespread look at
the entire state of Mississippi
5 to 10 inches of rain.
So intense rainfall expected from Ida,
not only in Louisiana but Mississippi
as well,
even some heavy rain in parts of Alabama.
The problem. And we've discussed this.
Anytime you get a tropical storm
or hurricane,
you expect the extremely heavy rain
and the potential for flooding.
The issue here is the soils are very
saturated down in the Deep South.
There's been a lot of rain,
so with the saturated soils you add on an
additional 10 to 15 inches of rain in a.
Up to 48 hour period you're talking a very
serious flash flooding concern along the
coast and even inland into Mississippi,
Alabama, and parts of Louisiana.
So that's what we're concerned
about with all that rain.
And then the storm surge always a big deal.
This is the latest forecast.
This may shift a little
bit farther to the east,
but right now the big big storm surge
South of New Orleans tend to 15 plus feet
possible of storm surge in that area.
Lake Poncha train 7 to 11 feet.
So you know the New Orleans area is
going to have some serious issues
with storm surge 4 to 7 feet on the
outskirts of that and two to four feet.
As you work over Tord Mobile AL
and then even on the West side
even closer to Lake Charles,
two to six feet on the far
southwestern corner of Louisiana,
there are wind gusts forecast
130 plus miles an hour.
That'll be for Lafayette over to Baton Rouge,
Halma. Excuse me, Houma New Orleans as well.
130 Plus mile an hour wind gusts on
the outskirts of that 94 to 1:30.
And then gosh, you don't.
I mean,
still inland,
you're talking 75 to 93 mile per hour winds
from Hattiesburg all the way over to Jackson.
So very strong.
Remember tonight right now as
a as of this exact broadcast,
we have winds of 105 mph.
Ida is a category.
Two winds are gusting up to 125.
Pressure is continuing to drop,
which means.
It's a healthy storm and you can see
on the last couple of loops on that
or the last couple of scans there of
satellite you see the ice starting
to become a little bit more clean as
it approaches Southeast Louisiana.
It's now 145 miles South southeast of
the mouth of the Mississippi River,
so make sure you stay alert.
You stay tuned here.
We will have the very latest on
Hurricane Ida overnight tomorrow,
all throughout the day and landfall and
beyond will have the latest here for you.