could a hurricane come up the mississippi river?

Question

I live on the mississippi river in central Iowa.

Answer 1

I like the first few answers you got...

The mississippi is just too cold to maintain a tropical feature at all non-the less a hurricane.

The river is also too small for a hurrrican to travel with it. A hurricane needs water 80+ and it needs to be at least a few miles deep in order maintain hurrican status.

Though there is a threat a tropical feature could reach Iowa...but by the time it will reach Iowa..itll just be a plume of rain and thunderstorms with a few gusts of wind.

Answer 2

The low pressure and high wind-speeds within a hurricane are powered by the warm sea in the gulf (or pacific). When a hurricane moves from over the sea to over land then it looses the source of energy and it's wind-speed drops. The wind-speed will usually drop below hurricane force within 24 hours. Look at the link below to see the track of Katrina to see how quickly the wind-speeds drop.

The Mississippi is far too small and too cold to cause a depression to track it upstream. If a storm did get to Iowa it is unlikely that the Mississippi caused it to go there.

So the answer is:

Yes: A hurricane could reach central Iowa, but is is very unlikely.
No: It would not come up the Mississippi.

Answer 3

Yes, considering that a storm is still a hurricane as long as it maintains its shape and wind speed above a certain level. So, theoretically, if a large enough and strong enough storm headed up that way, it could still be a hurricane by the time it reached Iowa.
However, hurricanes require warm water to maintain their energy, and they typically dissipate quickly over land. The Mississippi River is large, but not large enough or warm enough to provide the energy necessary for a hurricane to maintain itself. In almost all real-world scenarios, a hurricane would have "blown itself out", and become a series of thunderstorms by then. But I'm sure it's likely that a strong hurricane could still be strong enough thunderstorms to trigger tornadoes when it reached Iowa.

Answer 4

No. Hurricanes get their energy from the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico and the warm currents in the Central Atlantic. The Mississippi is not large enough or warm enough to sustain a hurricane.

Answer 5

The river is not a wide enough body of water where a hurricane could continue to obtain energy.

The Chesapeake Bay is a wide enough of water where a hurricane could maintain its energy or even grow as it moved up the Bay.

Answer 6

No. Hurricanes break up when they hit land. They are miles wide. They are nothing like tornados except that they spin around and destroy things.

Answer 7

It could, but it wouldn't be a hurricane by the time it got to you. It would just be thunderstorms.

Answer 8

yes it could