TD 9 becomes Tropical Storm Ida

Hurricane Hunters have found winds to support the NHC to upgrade TD 9 to a Tropical Storm.

Current Stats:

The latest position is about 100 WSW of Jamaica with max winds of 40mph. Movement is NW at 14mph. Pressure stands at 1006mb.

Satellite presentation shows the storm is organizing, but it is still not put together enough to rapidly intensify yet. The storm is taking some southerly shear which is enough to tilt the circulation. This means the surface circulation and mid-level circulation aren’t lined up. Once that happens the storm will start to strength faster.

Forecast:

The latest NHC forecast track follows model guidance very closely or perhaps just a little on the eastern side of the model tracks. It brings a high end category 2 hurricane (110mph) into the eastern Louisiana Coast on Sunday.

Spaghetti plots for the GFS shows the American Model is mostly scoped in on Louisiana and only a few members go further west or east.

The European Model shows nearly the exact same thing. It’s remarkable agreement for being such a newly named storm.

Models mostly show a category 2 hurricane at landfall but a few do being the storm to category 3 strength. This is a trend we will watch.

GFS for Sunday night.

We feel pretty confident the hurricane won’t go much further east of New Orleans at this point. This is due to a strong ridge of high pressure sitting to the NW of the hurricane over the weekend. This high will steer a strong Ida into Louisiana or a weak Ida closer to Texas.

Stay with Storm Guides for future updates. Remember that now is the time to start preparations. You’ll have, at most, 2 days to make big decisions about evacuating should you want to.