GOES satellite sees bulk of Ida's clouds and rain inland while center making landfall

Tropical Storm Ida made landfall around 6:40 a.m. ET this morning on Dauphin Island, along the Alabama coastline. NASA's GOES Project created the latest image from Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-12) data showed that the bulk of Ida's clouds and rain are now inland, even though Ida's center was just near the Alabama coast.

Ida has the potential to produce rainfall measuring 3 to 6 inches an hour from areas that include the western panhandle of Florida, north and central Georgia, eastern Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina. Some isolated areas may even receive as much as 8 inches of rainfall. The largest swaths of rain expected today will stretch from east of Panama City to Tallahassee, Florida and Birmingham, Alabama east to Atlanta, Georgia.

This morning, November 10 at 7 a.m. ET, Ida was still a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds near 45 mph. Tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 175 miles from the center.

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-12 captured a visible image of Ida's landfall on November 10 in Alabama. GOES is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA's GOES Project, located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. creates some of the GOES satellite images.

Ida is expected to continue weakening and will transition into an extra-tropical storm later today. Ida's center was about 25 miles south of Mobile, Alabama, near 30.3 North latitude and 88.0 West longitude. Ida is moving northeast near 9 mph and will continue in that direction before turning eastward. The estimated minimum central pressure is 999 millibars.

Last night, sixteen-foot waves were reported from an oil rig located 20 miles off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. Ida forced cruise ships heading out of Florida and Texas to change course yesterday, too. Last night, winds were gusting to 50 mph at Pass Christian, Mississippi. Pascagoula, Mississippi reported flooding and tree damage.

At 7:40 a.m. ET today, Orange Beach, Alabama was no longer getting rainfall, but was experiencing gusty winds, and a hint of sunshine was reported through the cloud cover. The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for the north and central areas of Georgia as Ida's remnants move through the southeastern U.S.

To see the rainfall in motion throughout the southeast, visit the National Weather Service Web site: http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/southeast_lite_loop.php.

Tomorrow and Thursday Ida's energy will merge with an approaching cold front from the west and will bring heavy rainfall on the eastern part of the Carolinas as the remnants move north-northeast and out into the Atlantic Ocean. Once in the Atlantic, Ida's remnants are expected to run north along the coast as a Low pressure system bringing rains to the mid-Atlantic states.

Permalink

November 10, 2009