How can a hurricane reverse the flow of massive rivers?

Question

Using Ida reversing the Mississippi as an example, sounds pretty insane to me.

In: Earth Science

Answer 1

All rivers (well… at least the majority of them) have their flow reversed when the tide is high, which happens roughly twice a day.

Hurricanes have a very low pressure area which effectively sucks up seawater, causing a higher and longer than normal high tide, causing the Mississipi to flow backwards longer than normal and on a larger scale in terms of volume of flow.