After whipping Central America with fatal floods and landslides, the tropical depression Eta is Cuba and then Florida.
Eta is expected to become a tropical typhoon later on Friday, with additional reinforcement probably until early Sunday morning, the National Hurricane Center said. It’s imaginable that Eta will regain the strength of a hurricane, the Hurricane Center said.
Once you reset and head to Cuba, you may cross the region for a while.
“The winds may not be the problem. Rains will be the problem,” said Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University.
Rainfall in South Florida through Wednesday can be five to 10 inches successful, and some set ups are successful at 1. 5 inches on Wednesday, according to the Hurricane Center.
“Eta’s heavy rains and wind gusts continue to rise,” said the National Weather Service in Miami. “Flooding remains a fear because of the saturated soils in our region. “
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Eta will be so big, rainy and messy that he may not have to make landfall in South Florida already drenched in rain to cause a disaster, Klotzbach said.
“Unpleasant tropical storms that move slowly can involve precipitation, even if they don’t make landfall,” Klotzbach said.
In early Friday afternoon, the typhoon had winds of 35 mph and was concentrated 95 miles east-northeast of Belize city and moved from northeast to northeast to 6 mph, hurricane center reported.
The typhoon left a catastrophic scenario in Central America, with dozens of deaths from Guatemala to Panama, and at least 50 more people died alone in Guatemala.
It will be days before Eta’s true death toll is known: his torrential rains hit economies already strangled by the COVID-19 pandemic, took everything they had little to, and exposed the shortcomings of governments unable to reach out and advocated for foreign aid. .
Eta the 12th hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season and the 28th Atlantic typhoon named this season, tying the 2005 record for named typhoons, according to Klotzbach.
Eta has already made history and matched the strength of the most powerful typhoon of the tumultuous 2020 season, Hurricane Laura, when its winds peaked at 150 mph before this week as it approached Nicaragua, AccuWeather said.
Contributing: The Associated Press; Cheryl McCloud, The Naples Daily News