Tropical Storm Sara formed in the western Caribbean Sea on Thursday. It's the 18th named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.
What You Need To Know
- Tropical Storm Sara formed in the western Caribbean
- Reports of flooding in Honduras' northern coast Friday night
- Forecast calls for Sara to dissipate over the Yucatan this weekend
Sara is crawling near the northern Honduras coast as is expected to move slowly over the next 36 hours. Some increase in forward speed is likely by late Sunday and Monday.
As it slowly drifts along the coast of Honduras over the next couple of days, it will bring heavy rainfall and life-threatening flash flooding to portions of Central America. Friday night, reports of flash flooding were coming in from northern Honduras and the upslope regions in the higher elevations.
More flooding could occur in Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala and western Nicaragua through the weekend with rainfall totals up to 12 to 16 inches near the coast, and isolated totals up to 20 to 30 inches.
Tropical Storm Warnings are in effect for coastal Belize, Honduras and the Bay Islands of Honduras.
Models have come in better agreement that Sara is more likely to remain a weaker system with significant land interaction. The latest update calls for Sara to dissipate before it moves into the Gulf of Mexico. While this is the official forecast, there is a non-zero chance an area of low pressure may make it into the Gulf.
The more likely impacts of Sara, or what's left of it, will be moisture interacting with a cold front during the middle of the week. This would bring areas of heavy rain to portions of the Gulf Coast states and as far north as the Carolinas.
Spaghetti models or plots show a series of individual computer forecast models together on one map. They are useful to give insight into whether multiple models are in agreement on the path of the storm but they do not address the storm’s forecast intensity, winds, flooding and storm surge potential or other data. Tap here for more details on how to best use these models.
Here's a look at the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season so far.
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