Hurricane Zeta sprinted across the Southeast late Wednesday into Thursday, leaving a swath of downed trees and powerlines. More than two million lost power from Louisiana through the Carolinas, and many will remain in the dark through next week. The direct death toll stands at six as of Thursday night.
Check out this mid-level WV imagery of #Zeta making landfall and eventually interacting with the winter storm from the Southern Plains. The winter storm pushes Zeta offshore as it fills most of the eastern US with cooler, drier air. Satellite is available to all subscribers! pic.twitter.com/Ehw64aeMId
— RadarOmega (@RadarOmega_WX) October 29, 2020
Sheriff Webre just sent me this video of LA 1 south of the levee system in Golden Meadow. Yes, that’s a boat on the roadway. #Zeta pic.twitter.com/bydOrAaocN
— Brennan Matherne (@BrennanMatherne) October 28, 2020
MUST WATCH — Time-lapse as the eye moves over Uptown, New Orleans with Hurricane #Zeta. Video: Carla Pesono pic.twitter.com/WUvQR8sZCV
— Scot Pilié (@ScotPilie_Wx) October 29, 2020
Zeta made landfall as a strong Category Two hurricane on Wednesday afternoon near Cocodrie, Louisiana. It was nearly a Category Three hurricane after experiencing an unexpected surge of intensification just prior to landfall. Within an hour or two of landfall, Zeta rolled directly over the New Orleans metro, the strongest hurricane on record to do so. The fast forward motion allowed the storm to cover a much wider area before the typical weakening due to interaction with dry land. From New Orleans on Wednesday evening, the storm reached Atlanta on Thursday morning and the Mid-Atlantic coast by Thursday evening. Merging with a larger upper level system to the north also extended the damaging wind threat.
Winds gusted 80-120 mph (130-190 kph) near the landfall point in southeastern Louisiana and adjacent Mississippi and Alabama. Gusts of 50-70 mph (80-110 kph) covered a much more extensive area from the mid-South through the Carolinas, plenty enough to knock down trees and powerlines and lead to numerous power outages. Rainfall was relatively limited by the fast forward speed of the storm. However, many communities near the coast were inundated by a storm surge as high as 9-10 feet (3 m). One of the fatalities was a man who drowned after being caught by the surge while taking video of the waves.