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Major Hurricane Ida


WxWatcher007
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4 minutes ago, nwohweather said:

This is one of the things even I as a weather hobbyist didn't fully realize until I came down here, the difference in impacts in only a few miles is wildly different. I remember going out to Folly Beach last year during Isaias and the difference in conditions between my house and Folly (20 miles as the crow flies) was astounding. Went from cloudy with a slight breeze to 50 mph winds and roaring seas. 

I was in Myrtle Beach for Isaias, and granted, it wasn't much of a hurricane and really only started to strengthen as it neared our area, but I realized that for most hurricanes, the area right around the eye experiences really bad weather and everyone else is generally ok. Even in terms of surge, seas were up but nothing crazy and then as the eye came very close, the surge came in, not that it was that bad. Our worst winds from that storm were probably from a couple of outer bands that actually hit us earlier in the day. We were just outside the western eyewall, and it didn't have much with it. The northern eyewall ran into Wilmington and was actually pretty strong when it hit there.

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Interesting thing about those horrific photos of Grand Isle is that this location was actually just outside the core in the moat between the inner and outer eyewalls for much of the landfall event. They did get hammered by the outer eyewall for a time. It appears that Ida had a large radius of hurricane force winds well NE of the eyewall and unfortunately the photography is confirming that aspect of the TC. By no means intending to downplay the impact there, but perhaps as bad as these images are, it could have been even worse had Grand Isle received the brunt of the inner eyewall, essentially what Port Fourchon experienced. Whoever stayed and survived got lucky.

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One thing I’ll say- though that’s a lot of damage in Grande Isle, that’s not nearly the surge damage I had expected for being in that location. Some houses clearly did get washed away, but not nearly what you’d expect from a 15 foot (predicted) surge. Good news on that front. Still the town looks like a complete mess and I’m sure every property has moderate to severe damage.

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1 hour ago, nwohweather said:

This is one of the things even I as a weather hobbyist didn't fully realize until I came down here, the difference in impacts in only a few miles is wildly different. I remember going out to Folly Beach last year during Isaias and the difference in conditions between my house and Folly (20 miles as the crow flies) was astounding. Went from cloudy with a slight breeze to 50 mph winds and roaring seas. 

My brother lives in Lake Worth, FL and was there for Dorian. It's insane (lucky) how he had some gusty showers pretty much but 100 or so miles east over Grand Bahama Island was annihilated. The PBI to MIA stretch is incredibly overdue for a bad one and the check will come due soon. Once north of NC hurricanes completely change to much more broad impacts. The worst of Sandy was actually 100 miles N of the center. 

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11 minutes ago, NorthHillsWx said:

One thing I’ll say- though that’s a lot of damage in Grande Isle, that’s not nearly the surge damage I had expected for being in that location. Some houses clearly did get washed away, but not nearly what you’d expect from a 15 foot (predicted) surge. Good news on that front. Still the town looks like a complete mess and I’m sure every property has moderate to severe damage.

It's early but I am not entirely sure if that 12-16 ft surge verified, and if it did it seems like it was mostly over uninhabited areas. Highest report I saw was about 10 ft Laplace. Obviously, am open to be proven wrong. 

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2 minutes ago, MattPetrulli said:

It's early but I am not entirely sure if that 12-16 ft surge verified, and if it did it seems like it was mostly over uninhabited areas. Highest report I saw was about 10 ft Laplace. Obviously, am open to be proven wrong. 

It did in grand isle. Water topped Humphress's cam and it was 14ft ASL.

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23 minutes ago, NorthHillsWx said:

One thing I’ll say- though that’s a lot of damage in Grande Isle, that’s not nearly the surge damage I had expected for being in that location. Some houses clearly did get washed away, but not nearly what you’d expect from a 15 foot (predicted) surge. Good news on that front. Still the town looks like a complete mess and I’m sure every property has moderate to severe damage.

Agreed, unless we just haven't seen pictures of it yet. I expected to see Mexico Beach, hurricane Michael type destruction where this came in, and it seems that didn't happen for whatever reason. Maybe it hit rather uninhabited areas or maybe the surge just wasn't that great because of the last intensification? 

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Those who are a disappointed with damage produced need to give more props to human engineering and understand that Cat 4/5 hurricanes are not nuclear weapons.  Many structures will survive these storms (even wood framed buildings).  If wind damage in Mexico beach was worse, it is very likely building code related as Michael was not much more intense than Ida.

neighborhoods being flattened are limited to only the severest of hurricanes (Dorian, Andrew, Labor Day, etc).  Winds have to be greater than 170 mph before that can occur.  Also got to give a shout out to those that designed and engineered the levees.  They were tested and they passed 

 

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20 minutes ago, osfan24 said:

Agreed, unless we just haven't seen pictures of it yet. I expected to see Mexico Beach, hurricane Michael type destruction where this came in, and it seems that didn't happen for whatever reason. Maybe it hit rather uninhabited areas or maybe the surge just wasn't that great because of the last intensification? 

Grand Isle missed the inner eye wall and worst surge. And as you said hurricanes travel with their surge, if this had been a long track 4 the surge would have been much greater.

Another thing to consider is the building types in the area. Almost everything right near the water is on pilings. That stretch of coast is so incredibly hurricane prone things are built to last through even a major.  

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10 minutes ago, Amped said:

Maybe they just needed some sleep.

Yes, and some need a break. But after EVERY storm the forums somewhat die off very quickly. If landfall was a let done it is over. But for us on Sunday watching the live iPhone/Galaxy cam on Grand Isle, it was thrilling even though at a 5KB upload so pixelated. But what fun! Every storm needs at least that.

My wife was yelling at me to turn down the volume. But I refused. (Brave of me, but hey it was a Hurricane!)

I'll catch up tonight since my early this morning scan of posts...

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6 minutes ago, eyewall said:

 

My first thought is that a lot of people complain about the building codes and regulations since Andrew in Florida, or Katrina in LA. If Ida hit 20 years ago we'd see flattened landscapes. But now roofs don't blow away like they used to. Once a roof is gone, wall just fall over and twist until they tumble. Structures hold up better today.

But still the costs will be passed onto insurance companies this week and we will definitely be hearing numbers that will put Ida into a historic cost hurricane forever.

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14 minutes ago, Maestrobjwa said:

Dude NBC Nightly News just spent a third of their broadcast covering it...no they didn't "forget"...It's just a bit of an unusual time where two huge events are happening at once. 

Depends on what channel you watch as well.

Granted, LA for some people is not important. Especially Cajun Country. For the rest of us, we love shrimp, enjoy when gas prices are reasonable, and actually care about people who are suffering.

My Dad just called (86 years old), stressing on politics and far-away places. I said all I was caring about today are the victims of Ida. He didn't even seem to know what I was talking about.

He watches a different news channel.

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It is typical for this forum and every other storm forum that I have visited or participated in, that as a big storm approaches the activity is crazy and even hard to keep up with as it approaches. Leave for a couple hours, and hard to catch up.

But then, after landfall; smoke a cigarette. The activity is slow. I swear.

The excitement of a storm approaching, when will the climax be, where, how "good," etc.

Yet really that is the beginning of the story. Yea fun to watch the sats and the chasers, Weather Channel on TV, so on. It is fun, even though we all say how much we care about everyone in the path.

For people who do care, the story just begins. And just look at how slow the forum is now. I say most people want death and destruction, even many mets. I get it, kind of, of course.

But really we will start to see what Ida did over the next days. And oh my, it was horrible.

This is when the forums should be active as well. But I bet my post sits for a while before anyone else even reads it.

;)

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, jm1220 said:

My brother lives in Lake Worth, FL and was there for Dorian. It's insane (lucky) how he had some gusty showers pretty much but 100 or so miles east over Grand Bahama Island was annihilated. The PBI to MIA stretch is incredibly overdue for a bad one and the check will come due soon. Once north of NC hurricanes completely change to much more broad impacts. The worst of Sandy was actually 100 miles N of the center. 

I live in Boca Raton which is just a handful of miles from Lake Worth. A lot of this discussion has to do with the size and structure of the storm. Dorian was very small. We got by with barely anything from dorian. However we got hammered my Irma whose eye was further away from us than Dorians. Irma's eye was over 100 miles away and we had widespread power outages and many trees and minor damage. Every storm is different. 

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