Hurricane Zeta's Mess And Two Winter Cold Shots Here In Vermont

 Hurricane Zeta caused a lot of trouble from Louisiana to the Carolinas yesterday and overnight, cutting power to 1.9 homes and businesses as it raced toward the Middle Atlantic States.  

Satellite view taken Wednesday of Zeta swirling in the lower
 left in photo with a large winter storm cloud shield to the 
west and north of it. 

Two deaths have bee reported with Zeta so far. 

The hurricane, with top winds of 110 mph, made landfall near Cocodrie, Louisiana late Wednesday afternoon.  The eye of Zeta went right over downtown New Orleans, where lots of wind damage was reported.

The storm also caused huge trouble in southern Mississippi with hurricane force winds and storm surges. 

Because the storm was moving forward so fast, it didn't have a chance to 

weaken inland, so destructive winds extended all the way to Atlanta, Georgia and beyond into the Carolinas. 

Believe it or not, we might not be done with tropical storms in the Atlantic. The National Hurricane Center is giving a disturbance in the eastern Caribbean Sea a 60 percent chance of development in the coming five days. 

If that one becomes a tropical storm, we will tie the record for the most tropical storms and hurricanes in a single season. That would bring us to 28 such storms, the same number as in 2005.

Zeta is about to merge with a storm coming in from the west, and will cause heavy rain and gusty winds in the Mid-Atlantic states.  Cold air feeding into the storm will change rain to snow in parts of New England, and here's where we get into Vermont's introduction to winter. 

VERMONT COLD

Winter weather advisories are up for the southeastern corner of Vermont - Bennington, Windsor, Windham and eastern Rutland counties for tonight. 

Rain associated with Zeta's remains will change to snow this evening and dump one to as much as locally four inches of snow on that part of the state. Travel could be a little slick down that way by tomorrow morning 

Precipitation amounts will taper off rapidly as you head north, and places north of Route 2 probably won't get anything at all.

However, all of us in the Green Mountain State are in for the first shot of winter cold. If you have stuff outside that can't stay there in freezing weather, bring them in today. 

Temperatures won't get out of the 30s tomorrow.  Tomorrow night, winds will die down and skies will clear, leading to a frigid early Saturday morning. Most of us will be in the teens, with the colder spots in the single digits. 

That brings us close to record lows.  The record low in Burlington Saturday is 17 degrees and Montpelier's is 16 degrees. Of the two, Montpelier's is the most likely to fall.

After a brief sorta, kinda, warmup over the weekend, and even sharper winter cold snap is likely Monday and Tuesday.  It looks like pretty much everyone will get snow early next week, but accumulations should be light. 

Before you get all upset over that, the second cold snap early next week will be brief, too. We'll get a strong warmup during the second half of next week. 

Also, if you still have autumn chores to do - I certainly have them! - this won't be as bad as last year. In November, 2019, hard core winter settled in around November 8 and stayed put, so chores outdoors went undone until spring. 

This year, we'll have some warm spells mixed in with cold shots well into the middle of November, and it doesn't look like we'll have a continuous, month long snow cover like last year.