Tropical Storm Earl whipped Belize and Mexico’s Caribbean coast with wind and heavy rain, battering cars, disrupting transportation and forcing hundreds into shelters as it moved through Guatemala toward southeastern Mexico on Thursday.
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The hurricane center said the storm could strengthen before the center of the storm reaches land.
The approaching storm dumped rains on almost all of Honduras, where officials reported a fishing boat was hit by a large wave in the Caribbean and capsized.
Hurricane conditions are spreading through central and northern Belize near the center of Earl. The storm was moving west at 15 miles per hour and is forecast skirt the southern edge of Mexico’s Bay of Campeche Friday as a depression, the weakest tropical system. It had top sustained winds of 60 miles per hour (95 kph) and was moving west at 14 miles per hour (23 kph).
On the forecast track, the core of Earl is expected to pass near the Honduras Bay Islands this afternoon, and then make landfall in Belize tonight or early Thursday.
After moving across the Yucatan Peninsula, Earl could briefly emerge into the southern Gulf of Mexico before moving ashore for a second time on Mexico’s Gulf Coast.
Puerto Costa Maya, Mexico, and areas south to the Belize-Guatemala border remain under a hurricane warning.
The Jamaican government is instructing residents in low-lying areas to move to higher ground once the storm hits.
The heavy rains it was carrying “could cause flash floods and mudslides especially over higher terrain”, Belize’s National Emergency Management Organisation said in a bulletin.
Officials also ordered the worldwide airport in Belize City to close and archaeological reserves and national parks were shut.
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Mexican authorities meanwhile say that the southern states of Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Yucatan are likely to be affected by Earl and have issued an alert. Six people were killed in the Dominican Republic Sunday into Monday because of this system passing near the island.
