Delta Looms In Louisiana, Oddly Severe New England Storms

The forecasts for Hurricane Delta is headed toward the southwestern and central Louisiana coastline.

If that sounds frightfully familiar, that's because horrible Hurricane Laura came ashore with 150 mph winds in just about the same place on August 26, less than two months ago. 

Hurricane Delta looming in the Gulf of Mexico this morning.

Delta won't be quite as strong as Laura, but it's expected to hit a spot that is exceptionally vulnerable, due to the battered location it's hitting.  

Aerial views of Lake Charles, Louisiana show a sea of blue tarps, as thousands of houses with roof and other damage from Laura haven't been repaired yet. 

Lake Charles probably won't see the worst effects of Delta, but winds gusting to near hurricane force are a terrible idea for this now-fragile city. Those blue tarps won't do well at all in Delta's winds and torrential rains.

Laura  had storm surges of up to 17 feet above normal sea level, causing incredible destruction.  Any efforts to repair that damage could be wiped out by Delta. 

As of early this morning, Delta was forecast to make landfall Friday only about a dozen miles east of where Laura landed. Not only will Delta trash an already devastated area, but it will extend storm surge flooding and damaging winds to relatively intact places to the east of Laura's path.

The areas that could get a damaging, life threatening storm surge extend to New Orleans and even east of there.  Hurricane Delta covers a large area. Larger hurricanes tend to have worse and more widespread storm surges than smaller ones. 

A sea of blue tarps covering roofs in this
aerial view of Lake Charles, Louisiana.
This is from Hurricane Laura damage.

Peak storm surges along and east of Delta's path are expected to be around 7 to 11 feet above normal sea levels.  

I think this is the sixth time this year Louisiana has been in a tropical storm or hurricane "cone of uncertainty." This cone is a forecast area in which an approaching storm might hit. 

As of early this morning Delta was getting better organized and stronger as expected in the southern Gulf of Mexico.  It has the rest of today to strengthen before upper level winds and cooler waters near the U.S. Gulf Coast start a weakening trend. 

That late weakening trend will be too little, too late, as I noted yesterday. As is typical in this size and strength of hurricane, the warnings include messages that note some of the hardest hit areas will be uninhabitable for weeks or months. 

Once Delta moves inland, it will weaken rapidly down to a remnant swirl, but will have enough oomph left to cause flash flooding in the lower Mississippi Valley and the risk of some tornadoes.

NEW YORK/NEW ENGLAND STORMS

Parts of the Northeast had some experience Wednesday with destructive winds as well.  A powerful cold front created even more in the way of severe thunderstorms than was forecast. 

A squall line caused a lot of destruction from Lake Ontario, through central New York and New England. These straight line winds with the thunderstorms cut power to half a million people in this region. 

At least two people were killed in the storm as trees fell on a car south of Saratoga, New York and on a golfer in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. 

Winds gusted to 82 mph in Quincy, Massachusetts, 70 mph in Worcester, 68 mph in Albany, New York and 66 mph in Boston.  

This line of destruction brushed far southern Vermont. Lots of trees and wires came down in and around Bennington, for instance.   

A thunderstorm, rainbow and fall foliage combine in Vermont
from this photo posted on Twitter by the National Weather 
Service office in Burlington, Vermont

This line of storms almost qualified as a derecho, which is a band of storms that goes for at least 400 miles and has numerous reports of winds greater than 75 mph.

This squall line only went 355 miles before moving offshore on Cape Cod and there were very few instances of winds exceeding 75 mph.

 A separate cluster of strong storms dumped hail slightly larger than peas near Burlington, Vermont and took down a few trees and branches. 

A squall line as intense as this is quite rare for New England in October. 

Incredibly, some more severe storms are possible again Saturday.  NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has Vermont, New Hampshire, southwestern Maine and central and eastern New York in a marginal risk zone for severe storms.

Videos of the New England severe weather yesterday:

Home security camera in Auburn, Mass. gets right to the point with a shed getting clonked by a falling tree and another tree falling, with wires sparking. Lots of wind, rain and hail then continue:

Video of the storm in far southern Vermont by Mitch McCue (@Vermontsterwx)