Hurricane Ida Reaches The Gulf...

Satellite views show the center of Hurricane Ida has just moved off Cuba and is heading into the Gulf where warm water & low wind shear should allow her to strengthen into a major storm.  NHC projects a Cat. 4 (140 mph) at landfall and it could be stronger.

The upper low over the western Gulf is pulling away allowing Ida no issues to deal with.  Her circulation has been disrupted somewhat, but that should quickly recover once she's away from Cuba.  Some good news is the intensity models have backed off a little bit.

The top graphic is the model runs from this afternoon while the bottom is the latest runs.  Notice most models now are saying Cat. 3 with only 2 going Cat. 4.

The spaghetti plots appear to have shifted slightly back to the EAST and I suspect the NHC 10 PM track will show that.  Here is the 10 PM NHC track.

At first glance, it's hard to see any change, and there isn't.   NHC even says they have "high confidence" in their forecast track.  Looking at the bottom 2 graphics you see the top one has the center line track now back between Morgan City and Houma (a shift back to the EAST) with the bottom track from 4 PM right over Morgan City.   This is not the news we want to hear.  Unless the track shifts farther to the west, parts of NOLA will see the eyewall late Sunday resulting is winds 100+ and widespread power outages.  That is why many of you should get out tomorrow.  Here's a map of where NOT to go.

Timing remains the same with crunch time Sunday PM into midday on Monday.  I know it's hard to leave home, but look at the potential heavy rain threat.

That's 10-15" for most of us with a 15-20" band to our west.  So do you want to stay where there will be no power (no AC) for days and water covering the streets making travel difficult?    I'll be posting again before 8 AM and I hope many of you will be already on the road or ready to hit the road to get out of harm's way.  I plan to close my shutters in the morning and have all plants securely in my He-Shed.  Stay tuned!