Zeta expected to strengthen, hit the Gulf Coast today
Tropical Storm Zeta is expected to strengthen again into a Category 1 hurricane and hit the U.S. Gulf Coast at or near hurricane strength Wednesday night, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Zeta was a Category 1 hurricane (winds between 74 and 95 mph) when it made landfall in Mexico overnight Monday, but it dropped to a tropical storm after interacting with land.
As of 8 p.m. Tuesday, Zeta was moving northwest at 14 mph with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. It was located 410 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River with tropical-storm-force winds extending 140 miles from the storm’s center.
Zeta is expected to turn northward overnight and pick up strength. Zeta is predicted to accelerate on a north-northeastward track Wednesday.
“Zeta is forecast to approach the northern Gulf Coast on Wednesday, make landfall within the hurricane warning area late Wednesday or Wednesday night, and move inland across the southeastern United States early Thursday,” the hurricane center said.
Zeta’s forecast path indicates a landfall between Lafayette, La., and Pensacola, with the center of the track in the vicinity of New Orleans. This marks the seventh time New Orleans has been in the hurricane center’s storm cone, according to The Weather Channel.
Zeta could become the record-breaking 11th named storm to make a U.S. landfall during the 2020 hurricane season, nearly all of them along the storm-ravaged Gulf coast.
“Heavy rain is by far going to be the most widespread impact from Zeta in the United States,” said AccuWeather meteorologist Niki LoBiondo.
A storm surge warning is in effect for the area between the mouth of the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana and Navarre, Fla.
A hurricane warning is in effect for the area between Morgan City, La., and the Mississippi/Alabama border.
A tropical storm warning is in effect for the area between the Mississippi/ Alabama border and the Okaloosa/Walton County line in Florida.
A tropical storm watch is in effect for the area from west of Morgan City, La., to Intracoastal City, La. A tropical storm watch even is in effect as far north as Atlanta.
Zeta is predicted to eventually mix with the winter storm that’s gripping the southern portion of the
United States.
“They’ll be a little bit harder to tell apart by, say, Thursday or Friday,” said Jonathan Belles, IBM meteorologist for Weather.com. “They’ll basically become one big mass of rainfall as it moves into the mid-Atlantic and northeast.”
New Jersey could experience wind gusts of 40 to 50 mph, according to Bob Smerbeck, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.
Zeta formed as a tropical storm in the pre-dawn hours Sunday south of western Cuba, only the second time in history a hurricane season has produced 27 named storms.
According to the latest estimates, southern Florida and the Florida Keys could see 1 to 5 inches of rain over a 48-hour period, with isolated amounts up to 8 inches. Portions of the Florida Panhandle could see 2- to 4-foot swells once Zeta hits.
How much rain South Florida gets will depend on the system’s movement in the western Caribbean, according to Chuck Caracozza, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami.
In rain-battered South Florida, the one-two punch of recent king tides and heavy rainfall has already caused coastal flooding and rough seas for boaters. Although Zeta remains hundreds of miles from the state, a moist air mass stretching northeast of the storm was drenching South Florida, National Weather Service spokesman Pablo Santos said.
“Given recent rains, particularly across eastern sections of South Florida, the region does not need much in the way of rain to experience flooding,” Santos said.
“A storm system over Texas early next week should steer this system north toward the central or eastern Gulf Coast. This will also increase wind shear across the Gulf of Mexico, which may prevent further strengthening of the system,” said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski.
The central U.S. Gulf Coast is expected to see 2 to 4 inches of rain, with up to 6 inches possible, in the days prior to the storm’s projected arrival on Wednesday.
“A few tornadoes are possible Wednesday and Wednesday night from southeast Louisiana into southern Mississippi, southern Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle,” according to the Weather Channel.
The only other storm named Zeta was in 2005, when a system developed on Dec. 30, a month after the official end of hurricane season, and lingered into the first week of 2006.