Hurricane Ida Vs. Buoys, Oil Platforms

UPDATE (9 PM): Ida is coming onshore as we speak. A station at Pilot's Pass, Louisiana gusted to 64 knots around 4:30 pm.

Shell's "Mars" Platform #42363 updated to show sustained winds of 60.2 knots at 3 PM (and it doesn't report gusts). And the Shell Platform "Thunder Horse" #42887, reported waves topping out at an impressive 33 feet!

Here's another shot from RadarPlus from early this evening:

And one more from MapSpace:

UPDATE (3 PM): The Mississippi Canyon in the Gulf is where the action is today. Shell's "Mars" Platform #42363 in the Gulf, 60 miles from the storm center (as of 12 PM Central) reported sustained winds of 56.3 knots recently (and it doesn't report gusts). Shell Platform "Thunder Horse" #42887, about 40 miles from the storm, reported waves recently at 24.9 feet. Here's another shot from RadarPlus from early this afternoon:

Here's a high-res radar shot (and RadSat shot) from AccuWeather.com MapSpace™ (PREMIUM | PRO):

NASA has several cool satellite images of the storm:

ORIGINAL BLOG (10 AM): Hurricane Ida has a surprisingly large wind and wave field across the Gulf this morning (when combined with the storm in the western Gulf), despite being a shadow of her former self on satellite this morning (and in fact probably below Hurricane strength - UPDATE: She has been downgraded as of 9 AM) due to wind shear. Here's a shot from AccuWeather.com RadarPlus showing the wind and pressure field, along with satellite and radar:

Her greatest hit to a weather sensor came yesterday when she moved over the only Buoy in her direct path, #42056 between Cuba and the Yucatan. Winds there were 64 knots, pressure fell to 29.10" (see below), and waves were at 21 feet.

Since then, the wind numbers have been lower; the closest hit was the Eastern Gulf Buoy #42003 which is seeing waves over 20 feet this morning with winds gusting over 45 knots. Speaking of the big wind/wave field, again if you count the storm to the west, there were waves over 13 feet as far away as the West Gulf Buoy #42002 east of Brownsville, TX last night, and winds over there were nearly 40 knots.

For reference, here is a map of Ida's track compared to the buoys talked about above (a combination of the track map from here and the weather/water station map from here). Red stations are offline and not all yellow stations provide meteorological data.

Here is a map of oil operations and platforms in the Gulf. Many of them match the locations of offshore weather data, as the instruments are mounted on the rigs. Some oil platforms were evacuated and some refineries shut down yesterday as Ida moved in.

Ida won't make landfall until tonight but I don't expect much fanfare between now and then. That said, the flooding will be a big story in the Southeast but fortunately it's missing the western Louisiana area which experienced major flooding last week.

What is the future of Ida? Who the heck knows. We're fairly confident with our current track that takes it through southern Georgia and off the South Carolina coast, but beyond that, it's "models gone wild."

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