Eta weakens to a tropical depression, but is forecast to strengthen again
Tropical Storm Eta, which is forecast to head toward South Florida next week, weakened to a tropical depression as it moved into Honduras Wednesday night.
But Wednesday’s 4 p.m advisory from the National Hurricane Center said the system will emerge into the Gulf of Honduras or northwestern Caribbean Sea on Thursday night or Friday. Once there, it will eventually strengthen back to a tropical storm and start traveling toward Florida.
Eta is expected to make a dramatic U-turn later this week over the mountains of Central America and track toward South Florida, perhaps by late Sunday or Monday, according to the latest update fromthe hurricane center.
Eta’s forecast track includes a large portion of Florida, from Tampa across to Palm Bay and down to the Florida Keys.
The latest advisory has Eta about 70 miles east of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, with sustained winds of 35 mph. It was traveling west at 7 mph.
“It’s too early for specific details, but the chance of heavy rain sand gus ty winds has increased. Flooding isof particular concern along the coast from the Keys to Palm Beach County given the saturated soil across South Florida,” forecasters said.
The highest potential for coastal flooding exists late Thursday through Monday from coastal Palm Beach County south to Homestead andwest to Flamingo, according to the National Weather Service.
Eta has pummeled parts of Central America bringing
life-threatening stormsurge, catastrophic winds and flash flooding.
Eta made land fall in northeastern Nicaragua Tuesday afternoon, with catastrophic 140mph winds, after several hours of lingering off the coast. Therewas early word of building damage and power outages in addition to river flooding, the government said. A sustained wind of 107 mph and a gust of 135 was measured at the Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua airport, the hurricane center added.
Eta is the 12th hurricane to form in the Atlantic basin this year. Its forecast track beyond Friday is uncertain, forecasters said.
Eta — the Atlantic’s 28th named storm this year — formed Saturday night in the Caribbean Sea as a tropical storm, marking the first time in recorded history that forecasters had to resort to using the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet to give a storm a name.
With Eta, 2020 has now tied2005, the year of Katrina and Wilma, for the record of most named storms in a calendar year.
“Only three full hurricane seasons on record have had 12+ hurricanes,” accordingto Dr. Phil Klotzbach, a at Colorado State University. The 2005 hurricane season also holds record for the most Atlantic hurricanes ina season: 15.
Forecasters warned of life-threatening storm surge, as well as catastrophic winds, flash flooding and land slides across Central America.
“Eta ismoving toward the west at 7mph. Awest-northwestward motion at a faster forward speed is expected this evening through Thursday morning. A turn toward thenorth, and then northeast is forecast Thursday night and Friday,” the hurricane center said.
The storm is forecast to bring at least 15 to 30 inches of rainfall across Honduras, Guatemala and Belize with the possibility of flash flooding and river flooding in Jamaica, southeast Mexico and El Salvador.
There’s still one month left in the hurricane season, which ends Nov30. The next name that would be used would be Theta.
The 2020 hurricane season was predicted to be above normal by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in May, but updated in August to extremely active.
Colorado State’s Tropical Meteorology Project team issued its first forecast for the 2020 hurricane season on April 2, when it forecast 16 named storms, eight hurricanes and four major hurricanes, an above-average season.
An average season, measured by standards established between 1981 and 2010, has 12 named storms, six hurricanes and three major hurricanes, defined as a Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
Zeta, which hit last week in Louisiana, was the record-breaking 11th named storm to make a U.S. landfall during the 2020 hurricane season — nearly all of them hit along the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast.
While Florida south of the Panhandle escaped virtually unscathed in 2020, Louisiana was battered by five named storms— Hurricanes Laura, Delta, and Zeta, and Tropical Storms Cristobal and Marco.