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(CNN) – Hurricane Eta continued to intensify this Monday and “has become an impressive November hurricane as it continues to experience rapid strengthening,” according to the National Hurricane Center. Maximum sustained winds have reached 177 km / h, just 1.6 km per hour from becoming a major hurricane (category 3 or higher).
The forecast foresees that Eta will continue to strengthen and reach 225 km / h, a category 4, before making landfall in Nicaragua in about 24 hours. Catastrophic wind damage is expected to begin tonight in Nicaragua.
In addition to dangerous winds, flooding is likely as the storm slows after making landfall. Rainfall of up to one meter is possible in Nicaragua and Honduras, but the threat of flooding extends to almost all of Central America, where river floods and landslides are expected.
“A dangerous storm surge will raise water levels 12 to 18 feet above normal tidal levels in land-wind areas along the Nicaraguan coast,” according to the NHC, worsening flood conditions to along the coast.
Eta is the 28th named storm of the 2020 active hurricane season and ties the record for the number of named storms in a single season set in 2005.
This is the first time the name Eta has been used for a storm.
The storms are named in alphabetical order, excluding names beginning with the letters Q, U, X, Y, or Z. In the event that a season is exceptionally busy and there are more than 21 named storms in a season, use the Greek alphabet.
Although 2005 had the same number of named storms, that year it fell short of the Eta name because the NHC increased the total to 28 after the season ended. At the time it was decided that a storm should have been named but it wasn’t, according to Tyler Maudlin, a CNN meteorologist.
So technically, Eta never declared that season.
