Updated 2 AM MAJOR HURRICANE CAT 3 Dangers of LANDFALL Within the WHOLE AREA of the Cone. New Orleans is the Big City But the Coastline of the GOM & Lake Pontchartrain Creates Dangers ... Storm Sruge on the Lake... in the Marshes at Landfall. Complex Dangers. Don't Look at the Center of the Line in the Cone.

Cone is a tad to the East.

As I mentioned earlier.

Use the river as a measure...

.. again it's about the whole hurricane.

but it's worth notinng.

Also not writing on 9 and 10 but it's busy out there.

So back to Ida.

Mean left hook there!

Pressure dropping but winds still 105.

Also Ida is expanding in size........

 

This is from NHC discussion.

Wind field expanding means more people hit by hurricane winds!

Note the strong red dangerous storm cells far from the eye!

Notice that strong storms are close to land.

Each hurricane is different shape wise.

This creates a possible path of damage....

...far from where it makes landfall!

Main point of tonights blog.

If you are inside this gridded area...

... you could get strong impacts from Ida.

Dangerous and deadly impacts.

The small bullseye is the hurricane force conditions.

The wider red bullseye tropical storm force.

Do NOT focus on the center line...

...it's an academic issue.

The deadly, dangers are inside the grided area.

Ida's eye.

Strange structure but it is what it is...

... should evolve overnight and intensify.

Pressure is dropping...

...then the winds go up.

Note Cuba is still within it's tail.

This is a massive hurricane.

But the deadly winds are in the core.

Around the eye not just in the eye.

Please remember that.

Below is a graphic from the NHC

Interactive Cone. 

Please use it.

This is the cone from 5 PM>

Understand there are multiple warnings.

So everyone in that zone... 

...especially the center should be expecting it.

Looking closer in .....

This is the center of the cone with the line shown.

Ignore the line and note the huge area in the same color.

This WHOLE area and later far inland... gets IDA directly!

Because of the topography and the shoreline of Louisiana, New Orleans, Grand Isle and Lake Ponchartrain it presents problems most other areas do not have. Let's say the hurricane follows that center line, tho rarely do they ever follow a line in the cone exactly... Grand Isle would get a serious storm surge as Ida's approaching track would be like an attack at it directly.  But storm surge at landfall is a moving target and in an area such as this it flows up into the marshes, areas adjoined to the coastal cities and Lake Ponchartrain is a beautiful lake more like an inland sea and the dome of water would be pushed across it at the towns located at it's edge on the North Side. A hit further to the West in less populated areas would be kinder (at least for the populated cities) but everyone from Baton Rouge to Biloxi should prepare as if they get landfall even though all the attention is on New Orleans a city many people know, love and can idenfity with vs lesser know places people actually live and are also in the path of Ida.

Note the many cities along the Lake.

Further inland away from "landfall" 

Yet any wind being moved across the lake...

... will be for them like another "landfall" in a way.

This is not the ocean but the Lake.

North end of the Lake (as well as the South)

Gets it's own storm surge.

So where Ida goes after "landfall" impacts everyone.

The 11 PM update will be important but basically the NHC has followed their forecast cone edging Ida closer and closer towards landfall. Despite looking incredible deadly and dangerous she has some odd issues that make her not yet a perfect Major Hurricane; best not to concentrate on minor fluctiuations in strength and she should continue strengthening over night. The NHC has pointed out to the hot tongue of water before landfall expecting her to be a Cat 4 at that point whereas I felt it would most likely intensify as it is making landfall. Kind of splitting hairs in an academic way. I know what it's like to have a Category 5 hurricane coming at me, chasing me not me chasing it to my home and when Andrew's intensity was dropped 5 mph and everyone at TWC looked excited I was not excited because seriously what difference does FIVE MPH mean when within that eye and all the weather it's dragging with it you can be hit by a fast moving cell that has wind gusts as high as 160 MPH when it's "only 145 MPH" and a case in point is that when the NHC lost the radar because a strong gust blew the huge radar device off the roof of their building when they were no where near the eye of Andrew.

The whole hurricane moves together towards landfall and rips across the land with a force hard to explain, when it is a Major Hurricane, and within the whole area being warned you can get wind gusts way higher than the actual forecast wind speed. So STOP FOCUSING ON THE LINE IN THE CENTER OF THE CONE and prepare as if you will get the "honor" of having landfall in your town. 

Details matter to academics but when it rips the roof off your house or your house ends up underwater it doesn't really matter if you got the eye or the storm surge to the East or the eye or the NE of the eye or were slammed by a tornado far from the eye. Sometimes people who don't get the eye but are in the eyewall for a long period of time have more actual damage from the nonstop barrage of Major Hurricane winds. 

Understand?

With prayers for everyone's safety in the path of Hurricane IDA.

I'll update at 11 after the new advisory. The above is my concern that there is too much concern on the academic concern on the exact track of the eye. If you are not chasing Ida (and I have many friends chasing it) you don't need to know exactly where the eye goes but worry more on where the whold system goes and the dangerous, deadly weather it carries within it's envelope of destruction.

I do think it has been tracking just to the East of it's forecast point so I'm curious to see if they will nudge it a bit East by a few miles or not but as I said before IF YOU ARE IN THE CONE at landfall expect that you and your property will get the brunt of this historic, Major Hurricane IDA!

Stay tuned... 

...here's a video of the Lake so see for yourself.

It's a 25 minute trip ...give or take.

It's an inland sea ...feels like an ocean.