BR plan for Ida: Wait, see

• By STEVEN WARD
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 6, 2009 - Page: 1A

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Tropical Storm Ida moved over the mountainous terrain of Honduras and Nicaragua on Thursday with a forecast that has its path moving into the Gulf of Mexico next week with a possible target of Louisiana, according to the National Hurricane Center.

State Climatologist Barry Keim said hurricane experts at the National Hurricane Center said there is a possibility the mountains of Honduras and Nicaragua will break Ida up and it will never move into the Gulf.

“There is doubt right now it will make into the Gulf. There is a distinct possibility Ida will break up first and it won’t survive,” Keim said.

Keim, co-author with Robert Muller of the recently released book, “Hurricanes of the Gulf of Mexico,” said history is on Louisiana’s side.

“There has never been a tropical storm or hurricane that has made landfall in Louisiana in the month of November in more than 150 years,” Keim said, adding this also includes the coasts of Texas, Mississippi and Alabama.

Hurricane season officially started June 1 and ends Nov 30.

Keim said the last time a hurricane hit the U.S. coast in November was Hurricane Kate, which hit the Florida Panhandle in 1985.

Keim said this doesn’t mean Ida might not be the first storm to hit the region so late.

According to the National Hurricane Center, possible paths take it into southeast Louisiana and the five-day cone of warning ranges from Florida to Louisiana.

Keim said if Ida does make it into the Gulf, no one at this point knows where it may end up.

“We will know a lot more on Saturday,” Keim said.

Gulf water temperatures are cooler now than in September.

Keim said temperatures are n the low 80s and still warm enough to move a storm through the Gulf.