The high-end Category 4 hurricane hit southeast Louisiana on August 29 last year with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph, tied for the strongest storm on record to make landfall in the State.
Coinciding with the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Ida unleashed wind gusts of over 170 mph near Grand Isle, Louisiana, where 40% of homes were destroyed. Ida also generated a storm surge of more than 10 feet, or a rise in ocean waters above normally dry land along the coast.
The storm knocked out power to most of New Orleans and more than a million customers in Louisiana.
Louisiana recorded 26 Ida-related deaths, but the storm was the deadliest in the northeast due to heavy rainfall from its remnants. Flash floods were declared from south-central Pennsylvania to southern New England and 49 people died.
Newark received 8.44 inches of rain, its wettest day on record. Excessive rainfall rates overwhelmed New York City infrastructure, with water pouring into the subway system and basement apartments; 3.15 inches of rain fell in Central Park in a single hour, the most ever seen in an hour. Rivers and streams swelled on their banks across the northeast, with seven reaching their highest levels on record.
The storm and its remnants also unleashed 35 tornadoes from Louisiana to Massachusetts, including an EF3 in southern New Jersey, the strongest seen in the state in 31 years.
Since the practice of naming tropical cyclones in the Atlantic began 69 years ago, Ida is the 94th named to be retired. The idea of permanently removing a storm name began after the 1954 hurricane seasonwhen Carol, Edna and Hazel ravaged the East Coast.
By far, storms starting with the letter “I” were the most removed – Ida is 12th. The others were: Ione ’55, Inez ’66, Iris 2001, Isidore ’02, Isabel ’03, Ivan ’04, Ike ’08, Igor 2010, Irene ’11, Ingrid ’13, Irma ’17.
The name #Ida has been removed from the rotating list of Atlantic storm names. It was new in 2009 after Isabel’s retirement (2003).
It is the 12th Storm “I” to be retired since 1954, cementing its status as the most retired letter.
It is the 94th storm name retired since 1954. pic.twitter.com/yeISFxruga— 🇺🇦 Brian McNoldy (@BMcNoldy) April 27, 2022
“The abundance of devastating storms bearing the name I is not entirely surprising: they tend to coincide near the typical peak of the hurricane season between mid-August and late September,” Brian McNoldy wrote. , Capital Weather Gang tropical weather expert, in an article. article from last fall. “With warm ocean temperatures and the absence of disruptive high-level winds, conditions are usually favorable for hurricane development just as ‘I’ is reached on the alphabetical list of storms.”
Ida will be replaced on the storm name list with “Imani”. There are six rotating lists of names maintained by the World Meteorological Organization, Imani will therefore not be used until 2027, since the list containing Ida applied to the 2021 Atlantic season.
The 2022 Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1 and is expected to be busier than normal. The first name on the storm list is Alex and the I-name storm is Ian.
