While southeast Wisconsin continues to experience some unseasonably cool, fall days, the Gulf Coast is again bracing for another tropical cyclone.
Hurricane Zeta is now the 27th named storm of the Atlantic Basin hurricane season.
Last night Hurricane Zeta made landfall along the northern Yucatan Peninsula with winds estimated at 80 mph. Today the storm will move out into the Gulf of Mexico and began to reorganize and strengthen before starting to impact the Gulf coast on Wednesday.
Hurricane warnings and Tropical Storm warnings are up for the Louisiana coast, stretching as far east as the Florida panhandle.
The graphic below shows the Hurricane warnings in red and the Tropical Storm warnings in blue.
Storm surge or water level rise of more than 1 foot above ground level is expected along the Louisiana coast and many areas are at risk of flooding due to the excessive rainfall the storm will produce.
Here’s a look at the potential rainfall amounts the storm could bring to the United States through Friday morning. Some areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama could see up to 6 inches of rain.
Once the storm moves farther inland, parts of western Kentucky and southern Indiana and Ohio could see as much as 6 inches of rain too.
We won’t get any rain from Zeta in southeast Wisconsin but our Thursday will be breezy at times as the remnants of the storm passes to our south.
The latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center has Zeta strengthening into a hurricane again before making landfall somewhere between the Louisiana and Alabama coastline on Wednesday.
If you’re keeping track- the last hurricane to hit the United States was Delta back on Oct. 9, as a Category 2 hurricane about 40 miles south of Lake Charles, LA. When Zeta makes landfall sometime tomorrow evening, it will the 11th named storm to impact the United States this year.