Hurricane Zeta

[burrel2]

No power here in upstate sc and I have a tree across my driveway. It’s sounded like constant 40-50 mph gusts for the last few hours outside.  Definitely the highest performing tropical system I’ve experienced in recent memory. Winds usually verify way below guidance here for tropical storms.

[Orangeburgwx]

I'm getting 35mph gusts down here IMBY

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[Amped]

Didn't even make headlines with all the election stuff.  There's a decent amount of damage.

[Prospero]

54 minutes ago, Amped said:

Didn't even make headlines with all the election stuff.  There's a decent amount of damage.

I totally appreciated the alternative as something to watch last night...

 

[dan11295]

1 hour ago, Amped said:

Didn't even make headlines with all the election stuff.  There's a decent amount of damage.

From some preliminary reports sounds like there was a fair amount of damage in the MS Gulf Coast, Bay St. Louis-Gulfport. I know there were multiple reports of 100+ gusts in those areas, plus the surge. Fairly large power outage event throughout the Southeast also. 2.4M customers out from LA-NC

[das]

The 11am update still has Zeta as a tropical storm as it enters SW Virginia.  Is it really still warm-core at this point?

[Orangeburgwx]

SHIPS what are you doing...

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[NorthHillsWx]

Pretty awesome hurricane footage 

[LibertyBell]

What were the highest confirmed wind gusts and storm surge with this?  I looked around and for confirmed numbers found 112 mph for highest wind gust and 10.88 ft for highest storm surge.  That makes me think it will be upgraded to Cat 3 in post, as the highest confirmed wind gust reported usually corresponds with the highest sustained winds at landfall.  

[NorthHillsWx]

24 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

What were the highest confirmed wind gusts and storm surge with this?  I looked around and for confirmed numbers found 112 mph for highest wind gust and 10.88 ft for highest storm surge.  That makes me think it will be upgraded to Cat 3 in post, as the highest confirmed wind gust reported usually corresponds with the highest sustained winds at landfall.  

I think Zeta, Sally, and Paulette all stand a chance to be upgraded to majors. Zeta and Sally have the highest chance because the amount of wind damage to assess and sample size will be much greater. It’s semantics but looking at 6 majors instead of 4 would make quite a difference on the perception of an already epic season 

[Prospero]

38 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

What were the highest confirmed wind gusts and storm surge with this?  I looked around and for confirmed numbers found 112 mph for highest wind gust and 10.88 ft for highest storm surge.  That makes me think it will be upgraded to Cat 3 in post, as the highest confirmed wind gust reported usually corresponds with the highest sustained winds at landfall.  

I've spent some time looking, and 88/112 from Bayou Bienvenue is the strongest winds I've seen recorded. Many PWS are still down, so some that have battery backup that still recorded after the power was out and may show up more later. A few professional stations stop displaying when the the winds hit 50 mph during a storm due to licensing. But 112 is the most I've seen that the public can see online. Local TV news and social media around there reported higher (as posted here last night), but I haven't been able to find the actual recordings online using the tools I use.

I was up at 4:30 this morning and the first thing I did was look for current winds with the storm. At that time I found 30 to 35 mph sustained winds with gusts as high as 59 were easy to find in GA, SC, and NC with PWS's. Keep in mind most of those are protected from the wind. One was from a Fire Station with 42/59 I think, maybe in SC. But I didn't go far from the center. I suspect some of the stronger winds were a maybe as far as 100 miles from the center ahead of the storm and east.

 

[LibertyBell]

1 minute ago, Prospero said:

I've spent some time looking, and 88/112 from Bayou Bienvenue is the strongest winds I've seen recorded. Many PWS are still down, so some that have battery backup that still recorded after the power was out and may show up more later. A few professional stations stop displaying when the the winds hit 50 mph during a storm due to licensing. But 112 is the most I've seen that the public can see online. Local TV news and social media around there reported higher (as posted here last night), but I haven't been able to find the actual recordings online using the tools I use.

I was up at 4:30 this morning and the first thing I did was look for current winds with the storm. At that time I found 30 to 35 mph sustained winds with gusts as high as 59 were easy to find in GA, SC, and NC with PWS's. Keep in mind most of those are protected from the wind. One was from a Fire Station with 42/59 I think, maybe in SC. But I didn't go far from the center. I suspect some of the stronger winds were a maybe as far as 100 miles from the center ahead of the storm and east.

 

Thanks, I didn't know about the licensing issue!  Is only certain equipment allowed to display very high wind speeds?  (Sounds like a money issue.)

 

[dan11295]

7 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Thanks, I didn't know about the licensing issue!  Is only certain equipment allowed to display very high wind speeds?  (Sounds like a money issue.)

 

I know it's a Weatherflow thing mostly (maybe some other sites have similar deals). Basically selling access to the data. Wundergound stations don't have this restriction for example.

[LibertyBell]

29 minutes ago, NorthHillsWx said:

I think Zeta, Sally, and Paulette all stand a chance to be upgraded to majors. Zeta and Sally have the highest chance because the amount of wind damage to assess and sample size will be much greater. It’s semantics but looking at 6 majors instead of 4 would make quite a difference on the perception of an already epic season 

Yep and a chance to set some more records.  Any idea when the latest is that a major made LF in the US?

 

[Prospero]

1 minute ago, dan11295 said:

I know it's a Weatherflow thing mostly (maybe some other sites have similar deals). Basically selling access to the data. Wundergound stations don't have this restriction for example.

I'm still waiting for Cameron's data to be displayed from Beta. I think they wait 30 days as Laura's did eventually show up and it was impressive. Beta's may be as well.

[dan11295]

6 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Yep and a chance to set some more records.  Any idea when the latest is that a major made LF in the US?

 

Wilma was Oct 24. 1921 Tampa Bay Hurricane was Oct. 25

[dan11295]

7 minutes ago, Prospero said:

I'm still waiting for Cameron's data to be displayed from Beta. I think they wait 30 days as Laura's did eventually show up and it was impressive. Beta's may be as well.

You mean Delta (I know easy to get Greek Letters mixed up)

[Prospero]

11 minutes ago, dan11295 said:

You mean Delta (I know easy to get Greek Letters mixed up)

Uh, yea. So many storms, so many names. LOL

I was going off of memory. ("Which one was it? Beta? OK, sure...")

Who remembers Hanna? This was an active forum for sure!

[Boat Owner]

So, how DID Turner Marine turn out? Are all the boats gone or smashed or did it turn out okay?

[dan11295]

Seen some some preliminary damage estimates of ~$5 Billion., or comparable to Sally.

[CheeselandSkies]

Some of the wildest footage I've seen in some time out of this. Combination of a daylight landfall and a storm that was strong but not so strong that all you saw was a wall of white.
 

 

[Prospero]

Some of the wildest footage I've seen in some time out of this. Combination of a daylight landfall and a storm that was strong but not so strong that all you saw was a wall of white.

@CheeselandSkies post

Yes indeed, and a good recap on the situation while it was still not over.

One line from a local that is repeating in my head, "When is it going to end?"

 

[wdrag]

Good info impressions shared by all on Zeta. Kudos to Moderately Unstable for the observations stated in paragraph 1 of the Tuesday evening (p4) post.  I didn't look at any Zeta posts midday Wednesday onward as the cat was out of the bag ,so to speak. Have attached this mornings remnant per outages... rather large 3-4 days after traversing the southeast USA.   I also admit the ICON October 23 early missed assessment of cyclone phase in the central Gulf.  A cycle or two later, all that was remedied by the multiple models while still hanging out toward the Yucatan. 

[dan11295]

Kind of weird to see outage from a hurricane and ice storm so close on the map like that.

[dan11295]

8 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Thinking this one might get retired? Big time season after all.

I think technically Greek names can't get retired. If it was a normal name It probably has 50/50 shot of being retired. Seems to be close to Sally in terms of impact  Just another reason to move away from this list to a separate list with regular names or just have a rotating list of six names. The latter option would help with the issue with certain letters "i" for example getting retired so often. Another issue with the Greek list is Zeta, Eta & Theta sound very much alike. We could have easily had Zeta and Eta active at the same time.

[hawkeye_wx]

I read that any Greek name would be retired as "Zeta 2020" and the name Zeta would continue to be used in the future.

[CheeselandSkies]

1 hour ago, dan11295 said:

I think technically Greek names can't get retired. If it was a normal name It probably has 50/50 shot of being retired. Seems to be close to Sally in terms of impact  Just another reason to move away from this list to a separate list with regular names or just have a rotating list of six names. The latter option would help with the issue with certain letters "i" for example getting retired so often. Another issue with the Greek list is Zeta, Eta & Theta sound very much alike. We could have easily had Zeta and Eta active at the same time.

Right. The original point of TC naming was to keep them better differentiated in forecast/warning bulletins. These could get confusing real quick.

[CheeselandSkies]

42 minutes ago, hawkeye_wx said:

I read that any Greek name would be retired as "Zeta 2020" and the name Zeta would continue to be used in the future.

Yeah, that is pointless.

My opinion is that:

1.) The criteria for retirement are getting too loose nowadays, especially for cyclones that make U.S. landfall. The only one that should really be in consideration from this year is Laura. Keep it to those storms that are truly cataclysmic/historic for the respective areas impacted.

2.) Keep the rotating six lists, but add three rotating lists of auxiliary names that can be used should the number of named storms exceed 21.

[Windspeed]

Zeta is upgraded to Category 3 at Louisiana landfall in post analysis. Not surprising at all based on obs and data sets that were recorded. We had 94 mph sustained winds outside of the estimated highest returns. Perhaps the surprise is Zeta sustaining significant intensification over very marginal shallow shelf SSTs (25-26°C) prior to landfall. Though that may be explained by upper tropospheric temperatures in place at the late season date and mid-to-upper trough forcing ascent and lapse rates for Zeta's strong semi-circle eyewall structure.