Hurricane Sara’s Track Has Fortunately Changed for the US

The track for Hurricane Sara, which could form from Tropical Cyclone Nineteen, has been made a fortunate shift compared to yesterday’s projections. While some models still show that the system will likely impact the US, and more directly Florida, in some way by next week, it has moved west toward Honduras over the last 24 hours. This will greatly affect the strength of the storm by the time it reaches the Gulf of Mexico.

What is Hurricane Sara’s path today?

The most likely path for Sara, based on November 14 models, has it move along the coastline of Honduras and through the Yucatan Peninsula in a northwestern track before curling toward the southeastern US.

The latest projection from the National Hurricane Center on November 14 at 10 AM ET has the system develop into a tropical storm within the next two days, which is when it will be officially named Sara. Then it will stay a tropical storm as it heads over Central America. It’s not yet certain whether the system will even become a hurricane, as predicted earlier, and it may even be downgraded to a tropical depression as it enters the Gulf of Mexico as it loses strength over land.

According to models via Tropical Tidbits, the system is still projected to hit the US, likely around Florida, within the next week. But it’s looking like it will be much weaker storm even if it does, particularly compared to the Category 2 or 3 hurricane that was predicted yesterday by Accuweather. Today, the weather service has downgraded the strength of the storm dramatically. There’s still a chance that the system is pushed east, which would make it gather more strength from the Caribbean sea through rapid intensification.

That said, the rainfall from this storm is still potentially severe for Honduras, Nicaragua, and Belize as it stalls near the coastline for several days. Even if it doesn’t reach hurricane strength, it threatens to cause life-threatening floods.