MyFoxHurricane.com blog

Record flooding from Ex(tratropical)-Ida

Posted by Andy Johnson under Daily updates

Last night when I was writing my blog, I was following the storm tide at Sewell’s Point, Virginia. The water levels continued to rise after I posted and finally peaked at 7.74′ above Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW) at 6:24 PM EST, November 12, 2009.  The all time record high storm tide was 7.89′ with Hurricane Isable in 2003. It is really amazing that after all of the hurricanes and Nor’easters that have affected this area, it was the extratropical part of Ida that almost produced the highest water levels on record in this part of Chesapeake Bay near Norfolk, VA. Tides have been continuously running above normal for about 3 days now. Even today the water level was 7.34′ above MLLW at 6:00 AM and 6.14 at 5:42 PM, November 13.  Day after day of high tides and pounding surf are really causing problems from coastal Virginia and Delaware up to New Jersey. The map below shows mid-Atlantic coastal location where water level sensors are installed.

The graph below show the normal predicted tide and what actually occured at Sewell’s Point, VA. The red line is the actual water level and the blue line is the astromically predicted tide.

The water level at nearby Money’s Point, VA (near Norfolk, VA) was even higher at 8.59′ above MLLW at 7:12 PM EST, November 12, 2009.  Accompanying the high tides were winds gusting up to 70 MPH at the Norfolk Airport.  The winds at Sewell’s point gusted to 50 knots (see the wind graph below).

Even at Washington, DC, the storm tide was 4.66′ at 4:48 PM EST, November 13 (See the image below).

At least the worst of the storm is over. All of the computer  models show a slow drift of the system to the east and eventually southeast as extratropical Ida weakens.

The satellite picture below shows that storm is “unwinding” somewhat as the heaviest rains (red areas) are getting displaced farther away from the center of circulation