Hurricane Ida Approaches

Weather reports have Hurricane Ida currently coming ashore in Louisiana and Mississippi by Tuesday of this week.  Although Destin to Panama City are warned of possible storm surges and coastal flooding (hey, I'm less than 1/2 mile from the beach!) people around here aren't worried.  They say if there were any chance we were in danger, we'd have been told to evacuate, as they have been in Louisiana.

However, this was just issued by the National Weather Advisory: 

Hurricane conditions could be felt along the Gulf Coast from southern Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle late Monday afternoon into Tuesday morning. For that reason a hurricane watch continues from Grand Isle, La., east to Pascagoula, Miss.

The impacts to the Gulf Coast will not change if Ida is tropical or extratropical as it makes landfall. Winds up to 75 mph, heavy rain, some storm surge, and high waves are all likely from the mouth of the Mississippi east to the Florida Panhandle.

On top of that water rise waves of 16 to 22 feet are expected from Mobile Bay east to Destin, Florida   (me -- yikes!) by Monday afternoon. Waves from just east of Destin east to Mexico Beach (southeast of Panama City) could reach 12 to 15 feet. The waves along the islands off the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts and from Mexico Beach south to Apalachicola, Florida could reach 8 to 12 feet.

I'm crossing my fingers.

Here were some waves this afternoon, and we are supposedly still a day and a half to two days away.

Ok, I have to confess that I didn't take this picture.  I had forgotten my camera, so I had to find a stock shot that was as representative as possible of the waves we experienced today.  (I was so tempted to post something tsunami-like.....giggle.....but I restrained myself.)