Hurricane Ata is forecast to hit the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua on Tuesday, as heavy rains from the hurricane threaten to cause deadly flooding in Central America.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that as of 10 a.m. EST, the storm was blowing at a maximum constant wind of 145 mph, and was located 30-miles southeast of Puerto Cabas in Nicaragua. Eta is moving just 5 miles west-southwest.
“Extremely dangerous hurricanes continue to erupt near the northeastern Nicaraguan coast,” the NHC said.
Hurricane Ita emerges rapidly in major hurricanes, will be in 4 categories by LNDFYL.
The storm is a Category 4 hurricane, the second strongest on the Sapphire Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. No strength is predicted to be lost until it turns inward.
Hurricane Ata, approaching Nicaragua on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, thunders like a Category 4 hurricane.
(NOAA / GOES-East)
“Eta’s eye is moving forward in the next few hours in the horizontal hurricane warning area, where destructive winds are likely to cause damage,” the NHC said.
On the forecast track, Eta will fly along the Nicaraguan coast during the day on Tuesday. It will be a devastating storm for the region.
Hurricane Ata forecast track.
(Fox News.)
Eta will run inland over northern Nicaragua from Wednesday morning and then move through central Honduras by Thursday.
Once the storm makes landfall, 15 to 25 inches of rain is expected in most parts of Nicaragua and Honduras. More than 10 inches of rain is seen in other parts of Central America.
Weather forecast for rain from hurricanes.
(Fox News)
“These rains will lead to catastrophic, fatal flash floods and river flooding along with landslides in highland areas of Central America,” the NHC said.
Tropical Storm ATA forms, building the most hurricanes on record; East to become a hurricane
Earlier Tuesday, Guillermo Gonzalez, director of the Nicaragua Emergency Management Agency, told a news conference that when Eta began landfill, there were reports of houses, trees, poles and lightning falling under corrugated metal roofs and rising rivers. Coastal area.
No injuries or deaths have been reported so far, he said.
He said about 10,000 people near the hurricane were in shelters in Bilvi town and the same amount was sheltered in small towns in the area. The area was hit by heavy winds and heavy rains for hours.
The amount of rainfall expected from Ita is comparable to Hurricane Mitch in 1998, one of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes in history. The NHC’s archival report says more than 9,000 people died as a result of the mitch.
It tripled in strength in about 24 hours, rapidly intensifying from a 40-mile tropical storm on Sunday morning to a 120-mile hurricane around noon on Monday and gaining strength throughout the day.
Eta’s remains will have to be monitored as it is predicted to re-emerge in the Caribbean in the next few days.
Forecast models show where ETA could go next.
(Fox News)
Eta is now the eighth Atlantic hurricane this season to hit meteorologists ’definition of extreme intensity. This is the 28th hurricane named Atlantic this season, with a record hurricane named 2005.
There is still one month left in the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, which ends on November 30, but the forecasters in September have broken numerous records this season compared to traditional names and went to the Greek alphabet for stormy alpha and beta.
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NOAA forecasters called for as many as 25 hurricanes with winds of 39 miles or more this season; Seven to 10 of them could be hurricanes. In those hurricanes, there will be three to six major, classified as categories 3, 4 and 5, with winds of 111 miles or more.
That is much higher than the average year. Based on data from 1981 to 2010, it has 12 named hurricanes, six hurricanes and three major hurricanes. There have been 28 hurricanes so far this year, including 12 hurricanes and five major hurricanes.
After the hurricane center has moved away from official names due to the number of hurricanes, take a look at the names of the Greek alphabets that are used for the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season.
(Fox News)
Hurricane Katrina was last used in the Atlantic in 2005. With a total of 28 storms that year, the first six letters of the Greek alphabet were used: alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, and zeta.
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Janice Dean of Fox News, Brandon Noriga and the Associated Press contributed to the report.
