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

The water in the storm weighs less… more specifically, there is less air holding the water down. Big storms have very low barometric pressure. On weather maps these “low pressure systems” are marked with a big letter “L”.

Low pressure makes it both easier for clouds to turn to rain and for the ocean to get taller than it normally would be. Since the ocean is taller it flows back into the Mississippi because it is relatively “down hill”