Tuesday, November 03, 2020

Hurricane Eta: November 2, Update A

It's only Monday and it's already a tumultuous week! Eta continued to intensify as expected and is now a really strong cat 4 storm with winds of 150mph, central pressure of 927mb (cat 4 range: 130-156mph) - data is from a plane. We can see the robust circulation and beautifully solid eye in the satellite imagery: 


It is close to the coast of Nicaragua now at 14.1N, 82.7W, moving WSW at a fairly slow 7mph, and should be on land in the next 12 hours or so. 

The slow forward speed is unfortunate because it means more rainfall, but also room for a little more intensification which means it may topple over into cat 5 storm territory! This is a big storm and the terrain is such that there is a strong chance of landslides in addition to the strong winds, floods, and high storm surge.

I am hoping that hurricane preparations have vastly improved since 1998 as this is reminding me of Hurricane Mitch - a slow moving storm that developed in the Caribbean towards the end of October and developed into a cat 5 storm whilst over water just off the Honduras coast. It dumped a lot of rain, over Honduras/Nicaragua/Guatemala and resulted in over 11,000 people losing their lives!

I really hope that those in the path of this storm have found a safe place to evacuate to and I hope that tomorrow, Tuesday, 3rd November, turns out to be ok - in Central and North America. Stay safe out there.  

More tomorrow when the news basket is going to be over-over-overflowing I suspect! I don't know if I have a big enough bottle of wine....

Ciao,

J.

Twitter:  jyovianstorm

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DISCLAIMER:
These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms - not the opinion of any organization I represent. If you are making an evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and the National Hurricane Center's official forecast and local weather service announcements. This is not an official forecast. If I "run away, run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know. 
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