Ida is over land and has been weakening.  It is a tropical storm now with maximum sustained winds of 60mph.  It was briefly a hurricane before making landfall this morning over eastern Nicaragua.  The storm is expected to keep moving on a general northward motion.  If it survives and goes back over water, then it may restrengthen.  The latest track from the National Hurricane Center www.nhc.noaa.gov shows that Ida could thread the needle and pass between the Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba.  There is plenty of warm ocean water for the storm to feed off of, but the wind shear will be moderate.  The forecast will likely undergo some changes over the next 24 hours.  As Jon Cash mentioned in the previous blog, it’s even possible that we could even get some rain from the remnants of Ida.  That’s possible, but not likely.

  Locally, we have an offshore non-tropical low that is actually far away.  However, the low is expected to strengthen and increase our winds out of the North/Northwest.  (mostly over the water).  Winds near the shore may gust to over 30mph tonight into early tomorrow.  Then, the winds will die off Friday night.  That’s when the bottom drops out and temperatures area wide will drop to the 30s.  We’ll probably see widespread frost and a possible inland freeze. 

Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler