Natural and some man-made ingredients came together, causing the weakened but still soggy remnants of Hurricane Ida to devastate the Northeast more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away from its landfall.
Natural and some man-made ingredients came together, causing the weakened but still soggy remnants of Hurricane Ida to devastate the Northeast more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away from its landfall. This sort of distant and deadly flooding from hurricanes has happened before, and meteorologists had warned that Ida could cause it. Although Ida had lost most of its 150 mph (240 kph) wind force, the storm kept its strong rainy core. Then it merged with a wet and strengthening non-tropical storm front, according to meteorologists and atmospheric scientists. When this happens, “very exceptional rainfall can occur,” said MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel. “This is not rare,“ Emanuel added. “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. Hurricane Ivan in 2004 took a similar track and triggered record rainfall in Pittsburgh, said meteorologist Bob Henson of Yale Climate Connections.
