NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Zeta, which swept through southeast Louisiana at the tail end of the 2020 hurricane season, has been upgraded to a major, Category 3 storm at Louisiana landfall, according to a federal report released Tuesday that underscored the intensity of the already record-breaking storm season.
The report by the National Hurricane Center said the storm led to five direct deaths and $4.4 billion in damage in the United States. It also brought with it storm surge as high as 10 feet in Mississippi and parts of Alabama, and some areas saw as much as 8 inches of rain. However, the NHC noted that Zeta was such a fast-moving storm that flooding associated with it was minimal.
Zeta was a late-season hurricane that first made landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula as a Category 1 and then again near Cocodrie, La., on Oct. 28, punctuating a season that already battered southern Louisiana. In addition to Zeta, the other hurricanes that achieved major status include Laura, Delta, Teddy, Epsilon, Eta and Iota. Of those, Delta, Laura, Eta and Iota were the most damaging, with Laura and Delta battering southwest Louisiana and Eta and Iota hammering Central America.
At the time Zeta made landfall, it was already known to be a strong Category 2 hurricane. But the report released Tuesday bumped its winds up slightly and pushed it over the Category 3 threshold. The center said the sustained Category 3 winds would only have been felt over a small area at the coast near the landfall location and the change in intensity wouldn’t have had much practical significance.
