Hurricane Ida Is so Powerful That It Made the Mississippi River Flow Backwards

  • USGS data shows that the Mississippi River’s stream was reversed for approximately four hours.
  • Supervising hydrologist Scott Perrien told CNN that flow reversals are “extremely uncommon.”
  • On Sunday afternoon, Hurricane Ida made landfall in Port Fourchon, Louisiana.

United States Geological Survey (USGS) data shows that the flow of the Mississippi River was reversed upstream as Hurricane Ida made landfall and pushed inland.

According to a USGS graph, the Mississippi River’s stream was reversed for approximately four hours near Belle Chasse, Lousiana, which is located in Plaquemines Parish.

“I remember, offhand, that there was some flow reversal of the Mississippi River during Hurricane Katrina, but it is extremely uncommon,” Scott Perrien, a supervising hydrologist with the USGS Lower Mississippi Gulf Water Science Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told CNN.

Hurricane Ida made landfall Sunday afternoon in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph. Ida is projected to continue inland over portions of Louisiana and western Mississippi on Monday, according to an advisory from the National Hurricane Center.

 

 

Tom Kucher

For as long as Tom can remember, he has understood the reality around him through the tinted glasses of works of fiction, be it books, films, TV shows, or anime. An English graduate, he wrote articles on a wide array of topics for several years, from entertainment and pop culture to history and literature. Before that, he was an educator and a roleplay game writer and developer. It is his deeply-rooted love for performing arts and visual media that led him to become a part of the DC team in 2020.

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Published by
Tom Kucher
3 years ago