This kind of deadly and distant flooding caused by hurricanes has been seen before. Meteorologists warned that Ida might cause it. The National Weather Service’s head said that the storm’s torrential rains were so powerful and so fast that the region was unable to withstand the downpour.
Ida lost most of its 150 mph (2240 kph), wind force but the storm retained its strong rainy core. According to atmospheric scientists and meteorologists, it then merged with a strengthening and wetter non-tropical stormfront.
Kerry Emanuel, MIT meteorology professor, said that this is when “exceptional rainfall can occur”.
Emanuel said that this is not a common occurrence. “For example, it happened with Hurricane Camille of 1969, which took a similar path.” Camille killed more than 100 people in Virginia from flooding after making landfall as a Category 5 hurricane in Mississippi.
Louis Uccellini, National Weather Service Director, and other meteorologists noticed an eerie resemblance to Camille over the weekend. This alarming observation prompted them to raise alarms.
“We all knew this possibility. These discussions took place even before the storm hit Louisiana,” Uccellini said to The Associated Press during a Thursday interview.
According to Bob Henson, a meteorologist at Yale Climate Connections, Hurricane Ivan 2004 followed a similar path and caused record-breaking rainfall in Pittsburgh. He said that Ida was a case of “rainmaking” and that it all happened along the I-95 corridor.
The storm dumped more than 3 inches of rain on New York’s Central Park in just an hour Wednesday night, obliterating a record set less than two weeks earlier by Tropical Storm Henri. Parts of New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania got more than 9 inches of rain.
The death toll and damage amounts are mounting.
“Some of it is bad luck too. Brian McNoldy, University of Miami Hurricane researcher, said that Ida would have tracked 100 miles further east. That would have meant that the heaviest amount of rain would have fallen over the ocean.
McNoldy stated that the severe weather threat and flash flooding threat in these regions were well-forecast several days in advance but it doesn’t lessen the damage they cause,” McNoldy added in an email. He also attached National Weather Service warnings starting Monday and Tuesday.
