Name: Tropical Storm Eta, latest threat in record-breaking hurricane season, to stay east of Louisiana
Brand: nola.com
SKU: nola-com-101
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Tropical Storm Eta, latest threat in record-breaking hurricane season, to stay east of Louisiana

preview

You are the owner of this article.You have permission to edit this article.Courtesy of the National Hurricane Center.&nbsp;There's a slight chance that southern Plaquemines Parish will see tropical storm force winds associated with Tropical Storm Eta.The National Hurricane Center is tracking Tropical Storm Eta in the Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Theta in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, and a system that could become Tropical Storm Iota in the Caribbean Sea.Tropical Storm Theta is not expected to pose a threat as it moves east in the Atlantic.Even before Tropical Storm Eta's shift to the east, forecasters were not expecting much rain in Louisiana from the combination of that storm and the frontal system that will keep it moving east.&nbsp;Tropical Storm Eta, the latest tropical system to flirt with Louisiana in the record-setting 2020 hurricane season, seemed to change its mind Tuesday afternoon about adding to this year’s&nbsp;pummeling of Louisiana residents, choosing instead to focus on a midnight Friday landfall near Apalachicola, Fla."The impacts for Louisiana should be very minimal," said Tim Destri, a meteorologist with the Slidell office of the National Weather Service. "We may not even see much rainfall with this."&nbsp;What rain does occur over the next few days, he said, might be the result of a strong frontal system that will move out of the west across the state, the same front that is expected to keep Eta to the east.&nbsp;The eastward shift was a surprise to National Hurricane Center forecasters, said Senior Hurricane Specialist Stacy Stewart in a 3 p.m. forecast discussion message. He said the numerous forecast models used by the center all predicted the eastward shift in their last runs, and attributed it to new information fed to the models from instrument packages dropped into the storm earlier Tuesday by a NOAA G-IV research aircraft.The information helped confirm that a broad trough of low pressure pushing eastward across the south-central and southeastern U.S. will erode the ridge of high pressure that has been blocking Eta’s northward approach to the Gulf Coast.At 6 p.m. Tuesday,&nbsp;Eta was 110 miles north of the western tip of Cuba, moving north at 7 mph, and with top winds of 60 mph.&nbsp;Eta is expected to strengthen to near hurricane strength over the next two days and then begin to weaken, as upper level wind shear and cooler water temperatures sap it of strength. It's supposed to make landfall at only about 40 mph overnight Friday.The wind shear also is expected to expand the size of the storm to the east of its center in the day before landfall, increasing the rainfall threat for much of the Florida Gulf Coast.Eta’s brief cant towards New Orleans and southeastern Louisiana earlier Tuesday made it a record eight times this season that a part of the state was in the cone of potential landfall for a tropical storm.Sign up for updates on storm forecasts, tracks and more.Eta tied the record of 28, set in 2005, for tropical storms or hurricanes forming in the Atlantic Basin, and was soon eclipsed by Tropical Storm Theta, a storm in the far eastern Atlantic, which became the record-breaking 29th named storm of 2020.And the year isn’t over, forecasters warn. A tropical system gaining strength in the eastern Caribbean Sea has a 70% chance of becoming the 30th depression or tropical storm of the year over the next five days, according to the National Hurricane Center.Louisiana State Climatologist Barry Keim has been trying hard to keep up with the dizzying number of records set during what is now officially the most active hurricane season in recorded history:If Eta had made landfall as a hurricane&nbsp;it wouldn’t be the latest hurricane landfall on the Gulf Coast. That occurred on Nov. 22, 1985, when Hurricane Kate hit Mexico Beach, Fla.Keim points out that there are caveats to all these records. Information about the formation and travel of tropical systems in the Atlantic, Gulf and Caribbean was spotty until at least 1947, when widespread air travel captured many storms, and the 1960s, when satellites began tracking their formation and paths. Most records for the Atlantic basin date back to 1851, and reports of storms in oceans are the result of shipping records.© Copyright 2022 , 840 St. Charles Avenue New Orleans, LA&nbsp;| &nbsp;|Powered by from .

You are the owner of this article.You have permission to edit this article.Courtesy of the National Hurricane Center.&nbsp;There's a slight chance that southern Plaquemines Parish will see tropical storm force winds associated with Tropical Storm Eta.The National Hurricane Center is tracking Tropical Storm Eta in the Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Theta in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, and a system that could become Tropical Storm Iota in the Caribbean Sea.Tropical Storm Theta is not expected to pose a threat as it moves east in the Atlantic.Even before Tropical Storm Eta's shift to the east,...

Tropical Storm Eta, latest threat in record-breaking hurricane season, to stay east of Louisiana

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS