Zeta Makes Southeastern Louisiana Landfall | WeatherBug
Main Menu
Responsive menu icon

Zeta Makes Southeastern Louisiana Landfall

October 29, 2020
UPDATED By WeatherBug Meteorologists
Hurricane Zeta made landfall near Cocodrie, La., around 4 p.m. CDT. It is racing northeast and ravaging Louisiana and Mississippi.

As of 7 p.m. CDT, Hurricane Zeta was located near 30.2 N and 89.9 W, or about 10 miles southwest of Slidell, La. Zeta has maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, making it a Category 2 Hurricane. The minimum central pressure was 972 mb, or 28.71 inches of mercury. The storm is moving north-northeast at 25 mph.
 
Hurricane Warnings are in effect along the Gulf Coast from Morgan City, La., to the border between Mississippi and Alabama, including metro New Orleans and Biloxi, Miss. Tropical Storm Warnings have been posted from the Mississippi/Alabama border to the Okaloosa/Walton County line in Florida. 
 
Much of this same area is also under a Storm Surge Warning, which stretches from the mouth of the Atchafalaya River to Navarre, Fla., including lakes Borgne and Pontchartrain near New Orleans, and the bays and inlets of the region, including but not limited to Biloxi and Pascagoula bays in Mississippi, Grand and Mobile bays in Alabama, and Perdido, Pensacola and Escambia bays in Florida.

Storm surges of 3 to 5 feet along the central Gulf Coast with 6 to 9 feet of surge will be possible from the mouth of the Pearl River to Dauphin Island, Ala., which will be east of where Zeta makes landfall. Gusty winds of 60 to 80 mph are likely across southern and southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi and southern Alabama, along with 2 to 5 inches of rain. A few tornadoes are also possible.

The storm will rapidly move inland and merge early Thursday with a strong upper-level low pressure system churning across the southern Plains. Downpours will soak the Ozarks, lower Mississippi Valley and South tonight and the Ohio and Tennessee valleys and into the Mid-Atlantic by early Thursday. Between 2 to 4 inches of rain will be likely for cities such as Atlanta, Knoxville and Nashville , Tenn., Cincinnati and even Washington, D.C., and Baltimore on Thursday. Flood Watches have been issued across the South, southern Appalachians, eastern Tennessee Valley and Mid-Atlantic.

Among the achievements for this hurricane season, Zeta is the 27th named storm of the year, which ties the all-time record set in 2005. Additionally, numerous storms have rapidly intensified into behemoth hurricanes, and seemingly nothing has gone “according to plan” this season. Therefore, it’s best to keep a close eye on the storm throughout the week.

While the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season is in the rearview mirror and the tropics had been quiet for about a week, there is usually a secondary spike in tropical storms and hurricanes in mid-October. Storms most commonly originate in the western Caribbean and central Atlantic this time of year.