As it approaches the United States, Hurricane Ida gains more force. The storm reached Category 4 as it approached the coast of the state this Sunday (29).
The astronauts present in International Space Station (ISS, its acronym in English) took impressive photos from the space phenomenon.
#HurricaneIda from @Space_Station just before noon CDT today. If you are/have been in its path, I’m thinking of you and hoping you stay safe. pic.twitter.com/C2fEJ3AxOh
— Megan McArthur (@Astro_Megan) August 28, 2021
This Saturday (28), before noon at the time when hurricane Ida will hit, around 2 pm in Brasília, the American astronaut Megan McArthur, from NASA, photographed Ida when she was still in category 3. “If you is or was in the path of the hurricane, I am thinking of you and wishing you are safe,” wrote the astronaut, as she published the photos on Twitter.
The storm looms in the Gulf of Mexico before reaching North American lands. Hurricane Ida is expected to hit Louisiana just 16 years after the arrival of Hurricane Katrina, a Category 4 storm that ravaged the region with strong winds and rains in 2005. In New Orleans, the state’s largest city, more than one million people needed to be evacuated in the region. More than 1,500 people died in Louisiana as a result of Katrina.
So once again, a similar phenomenon is frightening. French astronaut Thomas Pesquet from the European Space Agency (ESA) took pictures of the hurricane’s eye early this Sunday morning. The images also impressed him.
“It is worrying to see these weather phenomena becoming stronger and more frequent from our point of view. I hope that anyone in the path of this storm will be prepared and be safe,” the astronaut said.
The eye of #HurricaneIda. It’s worrying to see these weather phenomena becoming stronger & more frequent from our vantage point. I hope anyone in the path of this storm will be prepared & stay safe. pic.twitter.com/kUWzWXtmqs
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) August 29, 2021
Early in the morning, at 5:00 am at the site (7:00 am EDT), the hurricane was 85 kilometers from the mouth of the Mississippi River and 160 kilometers southeast of Houma, Louisiana, with maximum sustained winds of 240 km/h. The storm is considered extremely dangerous, risking people’s lives along the way. According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the next few hours could be catastrophic, winds hitting land.
Ida is the first hurricane in 2021 to hit US soil and the first to hit the coast of the Gulf of Mexico this year. New Orleans has a mandatory evacuation order for residents living outside the levee systems rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina.