Jason Delgado
After dumping heavy rains across Southwest Florida overnight, Tropical Storm Eta is threatening to make a second visit to the Sunshine State later in the week.
The most recent projections estimate a second landfall late Friday to early Saturday across Florida’s Gulf Coast. In the meantime, the National Hurricane Center warned heavy rains and possible flooding remain a possibility across southern and central Florida.
“Eta could approach the Florida Gulf Coast later this week as a tropical storm, and possibly bring impacts from rain, wind, and storm surge.” the NHC advised. “Interests in this area should monitor the progress of Eta and updates to the forecast this week.”
As of 1 p.m., the National Hurricane Center tracked Eta roughly 135 west-southwest of the Dry Tortugas. The storm was traveling southwest at 16 mph and had 50 mph maximum sustained winds that extend outward up to 140 miles from the center. The interior pressure was recorded at 995 millibars.
The National Hurricane Center’s forecast track projects that Eta will travel further into the Gulf of Mexico throughout Monday. The storm is then expected to remain at sea until Wednesday when it will begin its return toward Florida.
Eta first made U.S. landfall late Sunday over the Florida Keys. The system’s slow speed and heavy rains led to severe flooding in South Florida, an area already drenched from more than 14 inches of rain last month.
The storm also prompted school closures in select counties and forced the state to close COVID-19 testing sites in Broward, Lee, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.
The situation downtown #Miami with bad flooding along Brickell #Eta @breakingweather @accuweather pic.twitter.com/ErjikhXUDo
— Jonathan Petramala (@jpetramala) November 9, 2020
Earlier in the week, the storm swelled rivers and flooded coastal zones in Cuba, where 25,000 had been evacuated. There were no reports of deaths.
Authorities in Guatemala on Sunday raised the known death toll there to 27 from 15 and said more than 100 were missing, many of them in the landslide in San Cristobal Verapaz.
