The high-end Category 4 hurricane slammed into southeastern Louisiana on Aug. 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 more than 170 mph near Grand Isle, La., where 40 percent of the homes were destroyed. Ida also generated a 10-foot-plus storm surge, or rise in ocean water above normally dry land along the coast.
The storm knocked out power to most of New Orleans and to more than 1 million customers in Louisiana overall.
Louisiana recorded 26 deaths related to Ida, but the storm was most lethal in the Northeast because of tremendous rainfall from its remnants. Flash flood emergencies were declared from south-central Pennsylvania to southern New England, and 49 people died.
Newark picked up 8.44 inches of rain, its wettest day on record. Excessive rainfall rates overwhelmed the infrastructure of New York City, 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 observed there in one hour. Rivers and streams swelled over their banks throughout the Northeast, seven reaching their highest levels on record.
The tempest and its remnants also unleashed 35 tornadoes from Louisiana to Massachusetts, including an EF3 in southern New Jersey, the strongest observed 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 retiring a storm name began after the 1954 hurricane season, when Carol, Edna and Hazel ravaged the East Coast.
By far, storms beginning with the letter “I” have been retired the most — Ida is the 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 retired from the rotating list of Atlantic storm names. It was new in 2009 after Isabel (2003) was retired.
It’s the 12th “I” storm to be retired since 1954, reinforcing its status as the most-retired letter.
It’s the 94th retired storm name since 1954. pic.twitter.com/yeISFxruga— 🇺🇦 Brian McNoldy (@BMcNoldy) April 27, 2022
“The abundance of devastating I-named storms is not entirely surprising: They tend to coincide near the typical peak of the hurricane season between mid-August and the end of September,” Brian McNoldy, Capital Weather Gang tropical weather expert, wrote in an article last fall. “With warm ocean temperatures and the absence of disruptive high-altitude winds, conditions are typically prime for hurricane development just when ‘I’ is reached on the alphabetical list of storms.”
Ida will be replaced on the storm name list by “Imani.” There are six rotating lists of names maintained by World Meteorological Organization, so Imani won’t 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 predicted to be busier than normal. The first name on the list of storms is Alex and the I-name storm is Ian.