Reconnaissance planes found Friday morning that Tropical Storm Ida had strengthened over the Northwest Caribbean Sea. At 8:00 a.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Ida was located at latitude 20.3\u00b0N and longitude 81.7\u00b0W which put it about 115 miles (185 km) southeast of the Isle of Youth, Cuba. Ida was moving toward the northwest at 15 m.p.h. (24 km\/h). The maximum sustained wind speed was 60 m.p.h. (95 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 75 m.p.h. (120 km\/h). The minimum surface pressure was 996 mb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Hurricane Watch was in effect for the portion of the coast from Cameron, Louisiana to the Mississippi\/Alabama border. The Hurricane Watch included New Orleans, Lake Ponchartrain and Lake Maurepas.<\/span> Tropical Storm Warnings were in effect for the Cayman Islands. Tropical Storm Warnings were also in effect for the Cuban provinces of Matanzas, Mayabeque, Havana, Artemisa, Pinar del Rio and the Isle of Youth.<\/strong> A Tropical Storm Watch was in effect for the portion of the coast from the Mississippi\/Alabama border to the Alabama\/Florida border.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Two reconnaissance planes flying through Tropical Storm Ida on Friday morning found that the sustained wind speed had increased and the minimum surface pressure had decreased. The planes also found that the circulation around Ida was more organized.\u00a0 Thunderstorms were forming near the center of Ida.\u00a0 Storms near the center of circulation were generating upper level divergence that pumped mass away from the tropical storm.\u00a0 The removal of mass was causing the surface pressure to decrease. \u00a0The decreasing pressure resulted in the generation of more force which produced higher wind speeds.\u00a0 More thunderstorms were also forming in bands revolving around the center of Tropical Storm Ida. Winds to tropical storm force extended out 80 miles (130 km) from the center of Ida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tropical Storm Ida will move into an environment that will become increasingly favorable for intensification during the next 48 hours.\u00a0 An upper level low over the southeast U.S. was producing southerly winds that were blowing toward the top of Ida\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Those winds were causing some vertical wind shear.\u00a0 However, the upper low was moving away from Ida and the low was weakening.\u00a0 The wind shear will decrease as the upper low weakens.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Ida will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u02daC.\u00a0 Ida will continue to intensify today.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Ida could strengthen to a hurricane during the next 24 hours. Ida will move across western Cuba this evening, which could briefly slow the intensification process.\u00a0 An upper level ridge will be over the Gulf of Mexico during the weekend.\u00a0 The winds will be weak in the ridge and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Ida is likely to undergo a period of rapid intensification during the weekend that will cause it to strengthen to a major hurricane.\u00a0 Ida could reach Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tropical Storm Ida will move around the southwestern part of a high pressure system that extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern Gulf of Mexico.\u00a0 The high will steer Ida toward the northwest during the next 48 hours.\u00a0 As mentioned above, on its anticipated track Tropical Storm Ida will move across western Cuba on Friday evening. Ida will bring gusty winds and locally heavy rain to western Cuba. Ida is likely to approach the coast of Louisiana as a major hurricane on Sunday.\u00a0 Ida will be capable of causing major damage when it approaches the coast. It could cause a storm surge of up to 10 to 14 feet (3 to 4 meters). A Storm Surge Watch has been issued for the coast from Sabine Pass to the Alabama\/Florida border. The Storm Surge Watch includes Vermilion Bay, Lake Borgne, Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas, and Mobile Bay. <\/span> Ida probably will not be as strong or as large as Hurricane Laura was last year.\u00a0 Ida could be a little bigger and a little stronger than Hurricane Delta was when it approached Louisiana in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reconnaissance planes found Friday morning that Tropical Storm Ida had strengthened over the Northwest Caribbean Sea. At 8:00 a.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Ida was located at latitude 20.3\u00b0N and longitude 81.7\u00b0W which put it about 115 miles (185 km) southeast of the Isle of Youth, Cuba. Ida was moving toward […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[491,492,384,145,51,867,2629,2630,1213,113,493,837,716,112,2628],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13103,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13102\/revisions\/13103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}