Hurricane Ida hurtling towards US Gulf coast

NEW ORLEANS/MEXICO CITY: Hurricane Ida churned towards the US Gulf coast on Saturday, forecast to gather strength in coming hours and prompting evacuations of flood-prone New Orleans neighbourhoods and oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Forecasters said it could make US landfall as a dangerous Category 4 storm on the fivestep Saffir-Simpson scale, generating winds nearing 225kph, heavy downpours and a tidal surge that could plunge much of the Louisiana shoreline under several feet of water.

Ida battered Cuba on Friday and by early Saturday it was carrying top winds of around 129kph as it headed northwest, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. The NHC expected the storm to intensify rapidly before coming ashore by late Sunday.

Flooding from Ida’s storm surge - high water driven by the hurricane’s winds - could reach between 3 and 4.5m around the mouth of the Mississippi River, with lower levels extending east along the adjacent coastlines of Mississippi and Alabama, the NHC said.

Scattered tornadoes, widespread power outages and inland flooding from torrential rain across the region were also expected. Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards urged residents to ready themselves for the hurricane immediately.

Hurricane Nora to skirt along Mexico’s coast

Hurricane Nora formed early on Saturday in the eastern Pacific on a forecast track that would bring it near the Puerto Vallarta area and then head towards a close encounter with resorts at the tip of Baja California Peninsula.

Nora had maximum sustained winds of 120kph on Saturday morning, with tropical storm force winds extending out 335km from the centre in some places.

The storm’s large wind field and heavy rains mean much of Mexico’s central and northern Pacific Coast is likely to see floods, mudslides and perilous surf even if it misses the very heart of the hurricane.