Hurricane Iota Headed Toward Cat 5; Big Blow In Great Lakes, Northeast

Strong winds collapse the wall of this building in Wheeling,,
West Virginia Sunday. Photo via Twitter, @whgbravest

 Wow, it's rare for a hurricane to blow up as fast as Hurricane Iota has as it bears down on Nicaragua.

Overnight, it became a Category 4 monster with top sustained winds of 145 mph.  Worse, and incredibly, there are no signs that its rapid intensification is about to wane. 

There's no upper level winds to interfere with the storm. Intense lightning surrounds the eye, an indication of strengthening. 

Hurricane hunter planes saw the central pressure of the Hurricane Iota drop a full 10 millibars in a little more than an hour. I know I'm getting into the science weeds when I say that, but suffice it to say the National Hurricane Center, not an organization you'd expect much breathlessness from, was pretty damn impressed.

I won't get into a repeat of what I said yesterday, but suffice it to say this will be a terrible humanitarian disaster for Nicaragua, given they were slammed with Hurricane Eta earlier this month too.

This is the first time in the record books that there were two major hurricanes in the Atlantic in November.  This hurricane season really is for the books, and seemingly unending.  A major hurricane is one that achieves Category 3 status or higher, with winds of at least 111 mph.  As you can see, Hurricane Iota certainly exceeds that. 

BIG BLOW LAKES, NORTHEAST

The dynamic storm system in the Northeast and Ontario, Canada was really something, too.  The storm developed a squall line of thunderstorms that ripped from Ohio, through New York and Pennsylvania, and on into New Jersey and southern New England. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center recorded a whopping 465 reports of wind damage with these thunderstorms. A woman in Ohio was killed by a falling tree, according to the Weather Channel.

The strong southwest winds running the length of Lake Erie literally tilted that body of water. On the western end, near Toledo, Ohio, water levels dropped by six feet. But they increased on the other end, at Buffalo, New York by seven feet, causing a lot of lakeshore flooding.

In Ontario, winds gusted to 73 mph in Toronto, causing lots of damage and sending debris flying through downtown as stuff from a high rise construction site blew around. This storm really overperformed. 

Vermont, thankfully, missed the worst of this. We just had some gusty showers come through last night. The highest wind gusts reported in Vermont were 49 mph in Underhill and at the Morrisville-Stowe airport.

As we mentioned yesterday, it will be windy and trending colder today into Wednesday with mountain snow showers around. Highs by Wednesday will only be in the 20s, but will rebound quickly after that to slightly warmer than average highs in the 40s to near 50 by next weekend.