The latest hurricane report from the US National Hurricane Center said that Hurricane Sara made landfall in northern Honduras on the night of November 14 and threatened to bring heavy rains across Central America and southern Mexico. Hurricane Sara made landfall about 165 km west-northwest of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the Honduras-Nicaragua border. The landfall was near Brus Laguna, a village of about 13,000 people.
Hurricane Sara has winds of about 75 km/h and is moving west at about 17 km/h.
Hurricane forecasters say Sara will stall and move closer to the coast of Honduras through the weekend. By November 17, it will strengthen and approach the coast of Belize. Heavy rain is also forecast for Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala and western Nicaragua.
Mexican officials have warned that the latest storm of the Atlantic hurricane season could bring “intense rains” to the resort-rich Yucatan Peninsula.
After strengthening into a hurricane on November 14, Hurricane Sara is expected to “steadily intensify, even rapidly intensify, over warm waters” in the western Caribbean and reach or near hurricane strength as it approaches the coast of Central America on November 15 and 16, National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan said in a hurricane update.
If the center of Sara stays offshore, the storm could strengthen, but if it moves inland, it could weaken, Brennan said. The new storm threatens to bring heavy rain to Central America over the next few days. The center forecasts 250 to 500 mm of rain in northern Honduras, with some areas receiving as much as 760 mm.
“This could be a catastrophic flooding disaster for parts of Central America, particularly Honduras and Nicaragua,” he said. The latest storm of the Atlantic hurricane season could dump up to 100mm of rain in an hour, too fast and too hard for the land to absorb.
The US National Hurricane Center said it was too early to determine how the latest storm of the 2024 hurricane season might impact parts of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, including Florida, the Florida Keys in the US and Cuba, next week.
USA Today's latest hurricane report also confirms that Hurricane Sara's final path and intensity remain uncertain, and that forecasters are closely monitoring each computer model. In a worst-case scenario for the United States, a major hurricane could strike the Florida Gulf Coast by mid-next week.
However, Sara’s path to Florida could face some obstacles, including the possibility of weakening in Honduras and the Yucatan Peninsula. A cold front expected to form in the Gulf of Mexico early next week could also cause the storm to dissipate before it reaches the Florida peninsula, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane expert at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Public Health.
According to official hurricane forecasts, Hurricane Sara is expected to dissipate by November 19. However, if the latest storm continues to strengthen and hits the Florida coast, it will be the fourth hurricane to hit the state this season, following Debby, Superstorm Helene and Milton.
