8/27/21 Friday 11:15 am
If you are looking for my local forecast area update, I published it at 10 am.
The information I am presenting can and most likely will change. I have found the European model to be the most accurate in its forecasts, historically that has been the case. View this information as a snapshot and one particular scenario and do not rely on it solely as your source of information. I will continue to post these updates with the latest information but stay tuned to information from the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center as well.
Over the last 24 hours, Ida was named and is now strengthening. Technically, Ida is still a tropical storm, however, it should strengthen into a hurricane after midnight Saturday morning.
The models continue to suggest Ida will grow into a strong category 2 or moderate category 3 hurricane, and that it will strengthen as it comes onshore on the southern Louisiana coast.
At the moment, it appears landfall will be late Sunday night or very early Monday morning. However, tropical storm conditions could start as early as Sunday morning in the overnight hours. Hurricane conditions could start as early as noon on Sunday and could persist until 5 pm on Monday at the landfall area. If the storm tracks further west it will delay these times.
At the moment the latest European model run is sticking with a landfall just west of New Orleans. In this scenario (which at this point it is still just a scenario), the most dangerous portion of the storm, the northeast quadrant, would hit between Morgan City and the Franklin/Baldwin area along highway 90. The eye would go over Marsh Island and head towards New Iberia. Not all models agree with this track, but the European model has been historically more accurate than the other models.
The latest operational run of the European model is now saying Ida will be a category 3 hurricane with pressure deepening to 961 mb at landfall.
Here is the latest European 51 member multi-model run. The black line in the middle of the spread is the mean location track.
If you spend some time looking at that closely, you will see there is a strong west of New Orleans bias to this run. This is what I am watching closely because a large number of the model members show a track west of the scenario I outlined above.
Here are the operational European models wind maximum winds forecast.
Here is the current precipitation forecast
This is depicting 18 inches of rain near Atchafalaya Bay with 12 to 15 inches near Morgan City.
The initial projections for storm surge are 7 to 11 feet with this storm.
My next update will be Saturday. Thanks for following and supporting the site!