Will Ida Affect Central Virginia?

Ida has weakened from a category 1 hurricane to a minimal tropical storm over eastern Nicaragua, and is producing flooding rainfall with the potential for dangerous mudslides. Ida will move northward tonight into eastern Honduras and will probably weaken to a tropical depression by Friday morning. There is the potential for Ida to emerge into the western Caribbean on Saturday and to once again become a tropical storm. Extended forecast models indicate a continued motion to the north over the next several days, bringing the remnants of Ida into the Gulf of Mexico early next week. The moisture might then be pulled into a storm system moving across the central U.S. and into Virginia. Our chance of rain next Tuesday night would be from a combination of lift from the upper-level system and moisture from Ida, a system that is currently all the way down in Nicaragua.