Hurricane Zeta: October 28, Update A

Getting straight to the story today... Hurricane Zeta made landfall at around 4pm local time in southeastern Louisiana, about 60 miles SSW of New Orleans and near Cocodrie as a cat 2 hurricane with winds of 110mph. It's now at 31.5N, 88.7W, heading NE 31mph and is now a cat 1 hurricane with winds of 75mph (central pressure 985mb) and is over Mississippi. 

The NHC wrote this today: "Somewhat surprisingly, Zeta has rapidly intensified this afternoon." It was a little stronger than I was expecting, but I wasn't too surprised that it was a cat 2 given that I think they had underestimated it since it moved onto the Yucatan peninsula. It had a really good structure - until that vorticity in the upper troposphere begins to decrease, I've noticed that storms are pretty persistent regardless of other ocean or atmospheric influences. However, given the crazy turmoil going on in government at the moment, I think the NHC has done a pretty good job this active year.

The highest storm surge from the https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/ site that I saw was at Bay Waveland Yacht Club, MS (between Slidell, LA and Gulfport, MS), where it was over 8 ft above predicted levels: 

The track takes it across the US and out into the Atlantic. Although it's moving across land, this one will be quite windy and rainy so be ready. That's because the vorticity (circulation) is still really strong throughout the troposphere, plus, it's just about to run into a front so the extra energy from that will cause this to be more blustery and rainy than one would like - although it's fast moving, so it will pass by quickly:

I will stop in tomorrow to see how it fared - but alas, it looks like one fatality at least in New Orleans and a lot of power outage at the moment.

Ciao for now!

J.

Twitter:  jyovianstorm

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DISCLAIMER:
These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms - not the opinion of any organization I represent. If you are making an evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and the National Hurricane Center's official forecast and local weather service announcements. This is not an official forecast. If I "run away, run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know. 
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