By late Wednesday, Earl was a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 miles per hour (120 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. 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.
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While Earl is noteworthy as the first hurricane of the season, which begins June 1, it is actually the second hurricane of the year, following January’s oddball Hurricane Alex. Earl was moving toward the west 22 miles per hour.
The National Hurricane Center upgraded Invest 97-L to Tropical Storm Earl after hurricane hunters found a low-level circulation inside the storm.
In addition to winds, Earl is expected to produce a storm surge of up to 6 feet above normal along the coasts of Honduras, Belize and the eastern Yucatan and near and north of where the center comes onshore.
Guatemalan army soldiers sing as they stand for review at their base, before the arrival of Hurricane Earl in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2016.
The hurricane center said the storm will weaken after it reaches land.
Authorities have warned of high winds, heavy rain and flooding.
The hurricane was forecast to continue westward into largely rural northern Guatemala and then, as a weaker storm, into Mexico’s southern states of Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Yucatan.
Earlier, the storm dumped rain on almost all of Honduras, where officials reported a lobster fishing boat was hit by a large wave in the Caribbean and capsized. Additional weakening is expected as the center moves over high terrain, and Earl is forecast to weaken to a tropical depression by tonight.
The fifth named tropical storm of the 2016 season, Earl strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane on Wednesday, according to the NHC.
Up to 100 mm of rain is expected over Jamaica, while parts of Belize, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico could see a staggering 300 mm of rain, with isolated possible amounts up to 400 milimetres.
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Tropical waves that emerge off the African coast often develop around or even well after passing the Cape Verde Islands.
