UPDATE: Tropical Storm Sara Thankfully Dies, Leaves A Flooded Honduras Behind

Damage in Honduras from now-departed Tropical
Storm Sara, which dissipated this past weekend.

 Tropical Storm Sara, having tortured Honduras for several days with torrential rains and flooding, finally moved inland over Belize and the southern Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico over the weekend and died away. 

Good riddance

It left behind widespread flooding in Honduras, with reports of up to 40 inches of rain. So far, I'm grateful to report only two deaths, which seems surprisingly and happily low for a storm of this magnitude

At last check, reports from Honduras indicate 11 bridges, 226 homes and 252 streets and roadways destroyed.  More than 7600 people have been rescued.  

Some forecasts last week suggested Sara would re-emerge over the Gulf of Mexico, head east and becomc a threat to Florida.

The remnants of Sara might end up in Florida this week as a patch of briefly heavy rain, but that's about it. Nothng to worry about. 

One weird aspect of this is the remnants might ended up heading south to below Jamaica in the Caribbean, which is where this thing all started in the first place. But there's very little chance - if any - that the Sara remnants would regenerate.

Sara will probably - but not definitely - be the last tropical storm of the busy 2024 season. The Atlantic hurricane season ends on November 30, though a few tropical and subtropical storms and even hurricanes have been known to form in December.

However, the National Hurricane Center as of this morning is forecasting no tropical storm development for at least the next seven days. 

 

Tropical Storm Sara A Catastrophe For Honduras. But Forecast Is Encouraging For Florida

Satellite view of Tropical Storm Sara already 
unleashing torrential rains on Honduras.

The mess of storminess in the western Caribbean Sea got its act together enough today to be declared Tropical Storm Sara.   

As of late this afternoon, it had top winds of only 40 mph, which certainly isn't a blockbuster in that department. 

But Tropical Storm Sara is a big blockbuster in terms of rain, and it's drenching Honduras with dangerous downpours.  Worse, that state of affairs will continue into most of the weekend. 

The storm's forward speed, already kinda glacial, is slowing down even more. Sara will crawl along the northern coast of Honduras all weekend, at a forward pace as slow or slower than an average person's walking speed. 

All the while, it will dump extreme downpours on the nation, especially in the north. Mountains just inland from the northern coast of Honduras are subject to great rushes of water rushing down the slopes, and catastrophic mudslides. 

Some places could easily see 30 inches of rain. Fatalities are inevitable, I'm afraid. 

SARA'S FORECAST

Expectations of what Sara might do over the next week have changed markedly from earlier this week. Initial forecasts had the storm staying far enough offshore to gain lots of strength from near record warm Caribbean waters. 

Fears grew that Sara would become possibly a powerful hurricane.  And maybe have enough oomph left over to menace Florida.

Florida can't completely let down its guard as of late this afternoon, but residents there can certainly breathe easier. 

Sara's center is now forecast to hug the Honduran coast as it unleashes its cataclysmic rains, so it won't be able to strengthen much. Its interaction with land will probably disrupt its circulation,

Unless Sara somehow manages to edge a little further north into open water, forecasters now doubt top winds will go much above 55 mph or so.

Toward Sunday, Sara should finally get a gentle kick in the pants and start heading northwest into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Since it probably won't be all that strong to begin with, Sara will probably die a relatively quiet death over land down there. 

Originally, Sara was supposed to emerge into the Gulf of Mexico, possibly as a hurricane targeting Florida next week. Now the best guess is that what will be former Sara will cross Florida during the middle of next week as a modest rainstorm.

Things could obviously change.  Tropical systems have surprised us several times this year with unexpected strength and resilience, so Florida should remain aware of this thing, just in case. 

Quick Evening Update On Wannabe Hurricane or Tropical Storm Sara

The clouds associated with Wannabe Sara looked much
thicker and more organized than this morning, but still
not organized enough to be a tropical storm.

 The thunderstorms in the Caribbean that the National Hurricane Center have been watching closely a got a lot better organized as we went through the day. 

As of late afternoon, we still don't have a well-defined circulation with this thing, so for now, NHC has settled on temporarily giving it the clunky name Potential Tropical Cyclone Nineteen.

If it develops a circulation and increases its sustained winds to at least 39 mph, this mess will be renamed Tropical Storm Sara.  That transformation into Sara could happen at any time. I'm guessing tonight or tomorrow morning. 

This looks really ominous for Honduras. Wannabe Sara is headed that way, and forecasts indicate it will stall near that nation's coastline Friday and the weekend. So, it'll basically sit there and dump buckets of rain there for days. 

One to two feet of rain could easily fall on northern Honduras because of this storm. Needless to say the flooding and landslides if that happens would be catastrophic.  

This sort of reminds me of Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which caused immense flooding in Honduras and Nicaragua that claimed 11,000 lives. Mitch was much stronger than Sara is expected to become, so let's hope things go much better than they did in 1998.

After its expected big stall, Wannabe Sara is expected to start moving northwestward, probably crossing Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula next week.   It could move slowly over land and greatly weaken. Or it could brush the edge of the peninsula and maintain a decent amount of strength. 

That has eventual implications for Florida. Uncertain long range forecasts have Wannabe Sara emerging into the Gulf of Mexico and then heading north and east toward Florida. Might not happen, but that's the consensus for now.

The question is, will Sara at that point be a hurricane, or will be a sloppy, weak mess by the time it gets to Florida, if it does. 

We'll have to wait and see 

Back To Reality In Vermont. Meanwhile Grave Nicaragua Danger From New Hurricane

Cloudy, windy November skies over St. Albans, Vermont
a couple years ago. We're in the thick of overcast stick
season now and we'll see a lot of that in the coming days.

We've certainly gotten back to reality here in Vermont after last week's glorious, sunny record November warmth. 

The past few days have been cloudy and rather chilly, at least comparatively speaking. And it's about to get colder.  And more windy. It IS November in Vermont, after all. You really need to expect this. Sorry.

As I write this mid-morning Sunday, the wind is just beginning to blow outside my house in St. Albans, Vermont.  November is usually quite a windy month, and today will help cement that reputation.

Gusts will go past 40 mph in many locations, especially in the Champlain Valley. There might be a little light precipitation, mostly rain, but maybe some mix in the mountains and Northeast Kingdom.  But the bulk of the rain will hold off until later this afternoon.

It's not just us that are getting some good wind gusts.  There have been a lot of wind warnings and advisories from coast to coast the past few days. 

Today a huge area around the Great Lakes and Ohio and Tennessee valleys are under wind advisories or high wind warnings. 

Things will be particularly bad along Lakes Erie and Ontario in New York and Ontario. Winds gusting past 60 mph will shove already high lake water onto west and south facing shores in New York and Ontario, which is sure to set off flooding and a lot of erosion.

Storm surges on the eastern end of Lake Erie are expected to be as high as seven feet, and wave heights on the lake could reach 25 feet. This will probably be among the worst storms on record for that lake. 

Again, this is pretty typical of November, the exceptional power of the Lake Erie storm notwithstanding. It's a stormy month, and the Great Lakes are a particular epicenter for November tempests.  I bring this up every year, but I have to mention the real life storm and shipwreck in the song "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" happened in mid-November in the Great Lakes. 

Most of these November storms have cold fronts that bring in increasingly heavy tastes of winter air and this will be no exception. 

Temperatures will decline Monday through Wednesday, and by then, high temperatures will only reach the 20s. It'll be the coldest day since around the first of March.  There won't be much snow with this, but a few inches worth of snow showers could pile up in the mountains.

It's still a little early for hard core winter, so that type of cold won't last. Highs will be in the near seasonal low to mid 40s by the end of the week.  

Again, none of this is odd for Vermont, but it does come as a slap in the face after last week.

HURRICANE IOTA

What I described above is absolutely trivial compared to what is going on, and what is about to go down in Nicaragua and Honduras.  

Satellite view of Hurricane Iota quickly ramping
up east of Nicaragua this morning. It poses a 
terrible threat to that nation by tomorrow.

Earlier this month, those two nations were hit by Category 4 Hurricane Eta, with devastating results. High winds and especially devastating floods killed dozens and left towns and rural areas in ruins.

It's bad enough to be hit by a storm like that.  It's inconceivable to be hit by a second storm of similar strength a couple weeks later.

But that appears to be in the cards.

Hurricane Iota is strengthening explosively in the western Caribbean Sea.

It went from not really a big deal Saturday morning to a monster with sustained winds of 90 mph this morning. It continues to power up massively and is forecast to be a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 140 mph by Monday.

At that point, Hurricane Iota will be approaching Nicaragua and Honduras in roughly the same spot Eta hit  The region is incredibly vulnerable because of the devastation from Eta, so this really looks like a worse case scenario . 

If I'm dreading this from my safe home in Vermont, imagine how people in Nicaragua and Honduras feel. 

Hurricane Eta: Zombie Version In U.S.? Meanwhile More On Incoming Vermont Warmth

Evacuations in Nicaragua due to Hurricane Eta. Photo
via BBC

Hurricane Eta lurked just offshore around Nicaragua for much of the early part of Tuesday, smashing the nation with destructive winds and torrential rains causing intense rains. 

Eta then moved inland and its winds are rapidly diminishing as Central American mountains destroy the now former hurricane's circulation.  

But those torrential rains are continuing, and I definitely fear for what people are going through in Nicaragua and Honduras with the flooding. 

It will take awhile - perhaps days -  for the news of exactly what is happening in the disaster zone, but what we find out will surely be grim. There is no doubt epic flash flooding and mudslides going on.  The destructive winds that hit the coast of Nicaragua will almost be an afterthought compared to this. 

So, we'll keep an eye on this. 

Plus, we have to keep an eye on the actual storm.   Usually, when a hurricane plows into Central America, it dies a quick death in the mountains and that's that.   Every once in a while, some remains of such a storm emerge into the Pacific Ocean to create a new tropical storm or hurricane. 

Or, somewhat more rarely and occasionally, the pitiful remains of a Central American hurricane somehow get kicked back out to the western Caribbean Sea or southern Gulf of Mexico to create more mischief. 

That appears to be what will likely happen with former Hurricane Eta.  As the National Hurricane Center forecasts, the low level circulation of Eta should be destroyed within a day or two.  But its upper level spin is forecast to come back out into the far western Caribbean Sea around Friday.

This will create what I might call a zombie version of Eta.  The NHC thinks it will redevelop into a tropical storm and become a possible threat to Cuba and Florida.

Nobody thinks Zombie Eta will become an extreme  Category 4 hurricane as it was when it tortured Nicaragua this week.  

But this is 2020, so if anything can go wrong, it will.  Which makes me say "go figure" with the forecast for Zombie Eta. I imagine if a revived Eta affects Florida early next week, its primary threat would be heavy rains.  

South Florida had a sopping wet October, so they're especially flood prone right now.  If Eta arrives, that could trigger some serious flooding.  That's not an official forecast, at least not yet, but it's something to keep an eye on.

VERMONT WARMTH

As promised for days now, we're about to enter an odd (for November) warm spell.  Odd mostly because of how long it's expected to last. 

You'll notice the increasing warmth today, but it won't really hit until tomorrow.  If you have a little snow on the ground, it will be gone by sunset today.  If you have a lot of snow on the ground - I'm talking to you western slopes of the Green Mountains boys and girls - it might take a couple or few days, but it will go.

Today, high temperatures will be in the 40s to near 50 in the warm spots, especially south and west of Interstate 89.  Then we get a spell starting tomorrow and lasting through at least Tuesday in which afternoon highs in Vermont reach the 60s in many areas. (Friday might be briefly a little cooler, but not by much). 

Another oddity will be the lack of precipitation.  It's possible a couple of weak, stalled out fronts north of us could spread a few sprinkles our way. But don't expect anything major until at least Tuesday.

Also, there will be at least some sunshine almost every day through Tuesday.  It probably won't be crystal clear most of the time. However, such a long stretch of days with at least a chance of seeing some some in November is rare.  This is normally the gloomiest month of the year. 

There's still a chance some record highs might fall.  There was a smattering of record highs in the Midwest and northern Plains yesterday, and that state of affairs looks like it wants to spread this way by the weekend. 

For those of you who prefer winter, relax.  It's only November. You have plenty of time coming up to enjoy the snow.