Hurricane Zeta To Slam Gulf Coast Today

Hurricane Zeta this morning looking healthy and
targeting Louisiana and Mississippi 

 It wouldn't be the year 2020 without yet another hurricane over performing and getting ready to wreck another part of the United States Gulf Coast.  

Hurricane Zeta strengthened pretty robustly last night, and was packing highest sustained winds of 90 mph on approach to the Gulf Coast early this morning. 

Zeta has a shot at strengthening a bit more before cooler coastal waters, stronger upper level winds and proximity to the coast shut off the fuel that keeps letting Zeta becoming muscular. 

So, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are in for a big blow later today and this evening. 

Forecasters have upped the predicted storm surge to as much as six to nine feet above normal sea level.  

Zeta's forward speed is faster than the usual Gulf of Mexico hurricane, so that will help winds be stronger on the eastern side of the storm.  That's because on the eastern side of a northbound storm, you have to add the winds of the storm with the forward speed to get what actually  happens.

The fast forward speed means that winds will continue to blow strong and damaging well inland, because Zeta won't have time to weaken much once it moves inland, since it's moving so fast. A tropical storm watch is in effect as far inland as the Atlanta, Georgia area.

The only bright side is the forward speed is so fast that epic inland flooding is probably not in the cards. The storm won't have time to dump huge amounts of rain. 

However, hurricane rains are torrential, so some flooding is inevitable. On top of that, as Zeta dies inland, it will merge with another storm to create a soaking, potentially flooding rain in parts of the Deep South, Tennessee Valley and Mid-Atlantic States.

This will be the fifth hurricane to strike the Gulf Coast and third time a hurricane has struck Louisiana this year, so I'm sure everybody has had enough by now. 

It'll be the latest in the season a hurricane has struck the Gulf Coast since Hurricane Kate on November 22, 1985. 

For Hurricane Zeta, evacuations are ongoing in advance of the storm.  Low-lying Grand Isle, Louisiana is being evacuated for the fifth time this year due to Hurricanes.  

Metro New Orleans is included in the hurricane warning, so we'll have to watch their levees. Hopefully they'll hold and avoid any catastrophic flooding. Until now, all these hurricanes this year have largely missed New Orleans. Not this time. 

It still looks like the combined remnants of Zeta and that storm from the Plains will dump some snow on New England Thursday night. It looks like most of it will hit higher elevations of central New England. 

The southern half of Vermont stands to see a couple inches of snow with this, with maybe four or five inches in the higher elevations. So far, it's looking like northern Vermont will get little or no snow.  Expect a wintry day on Friday, though, as high temperatures will barely make it above freezing in some spots.  A north wind will add to the chill.