Extreme floods and mudslides continued Friday as Tropical Storm Sara wrung out a tremendous amount of moisture over northern Honduras.
The storm’s very slow track through the western Caribbean will make flash flooding and mudslides a persistent and life-threatening hazard into the weekend.
Looking ahead, it remains uncertain what—if any—impacts the system or its remnants may have on Florida next week.
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Tropical Storm Sara formed in the western Caribbean on Thursday, right about where you would expect to see a system develop this late in the hurricane season.
The overall pattern over the Caribbean has forced Sara to stall-out near the northern coast of Honduras. It’s expected to move very little over the next couple of days. While land interaction will keep the storm from taking advantage of warm waters to strengthen, heavy rain is far and away the greatest threat from this system.
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Repeated rounds of torrential downpours have washed over the country’s mountainous terrain. The city of La Ceiba, which is home to a quarter of a million people, measured 556.0 mm of rain in 24 hours as of noon local time on Friday. Extensive flash floods and mudslides have been reported throughout the region.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) expects “life-threatening, potentially catastrophic flash flooding and mudslides” to persist across northern Honduras into this weekend as Sara wrings out copious amounts of tropical rainfall over the region.
Additional rainfall totals of 300-500+ mm are expected as the downpours continue into this weekend. Storm totals could easily exceed 700 mm across a wide swath of northern Honduras, with the potential for 1000+ mm of rain in some locations. This would exceed the devastating totals North Carolina saw during Hurricane Helene.
The ridge of high pressure keeping Sara locked in place will begin to move later this weekend, allowing the storm to start inching west toward Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Forecasters expect Sara to make landfall in Belize on Sunday, with the system or its remnants emerging in the southern Gulf of Mexico by early next week.
Beyond that, its future is still highly uncertain. Interests in Florida should closely monitor the latest forecast updates with this system for potential impacts from rain and wind at some point next week.
Header satellite image courtesy of NOAA.
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