Hurricane Ida is so powerful it made the Mississippi River flow backwards

• USGS data shows that the Mississippi River's stream was reversed for approximately four hours.
• Supervising hydrologist Scott Perrien told CNN that flow reversals are "extremely uncommon."
• On Sunday afternoon, Hurricane Ida made landfall in Port Fourchon, Louisiana.

United States Geological Survey (USGS) data shows that the flow of the Mississippi River was reversed upstream as Hurricane Ida made landfall and pushed inland.

According to a USGS graph, the Mississippi River's stream was reversed for approximately four hours near Belle Chasse, Lousiana, which is located in Plaquemines Parish.

"I remember, offhand, that there was some flow reversal of the Mississippi River during Hurricane Katrina, but it is extremely uncommon," Scott Perrien, a supervising hydrologist with the USGS Lower Mississippi Gulf Water Science Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told CNN.

Hurricane Ida made landfall Sunday afternoon in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph. Ida is projected to continue inland over portions of Louisiana and western Mississippi on Monday, according to an advisory from the National Hurricane Center.