“Extremely dangerous” Hurricane Ida strengthens dramatically overnight

A satellite image of Hurricane Ida over the Gulf of Mexico. | GOES-East NOAAHurricane Ida is pummeling Louisiana as an “extremely dangerous” storm after strengthening rapidly over the weekend. The hurricane swirled towards the coast with winds of 150 miles per hour, accompanied by a life-threatening surge of water, forecasters with the National Hurricane Center warned on Sunday.
“This will be one of the strongest hurricanes to hit anywhere in Louisiana since at least the 1850s,” Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said at a press conference on Saturday. The storm made landfall just before noon local time, near Port Fourchon, Louisiana.
Ida already had wind speeds of 103 miles per hour on Saturday night. Just six hours later, the storm had strengthened into a major hurricane with wind speeds increasing to 130…

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