Tracking the Tropics: The Action News JAX First Alert Weather Team is tracking Tropical Storm Nate near the coast of Nicaragua and Honduras today. “Get a plan. Prepare to protect your personal property”.
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The National Hurricane Center has issued storm surge, hurricane and tropical storm advisories for parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast as Tropical Storm Nate approaches.
The NHC’s update Thursday at 2 p.m., though, had Nate’s cone now barely including the western edge of Florida’s panhandle, instead centered over MS and Alabama and the eastern edge of Louisiana, including New Orleans.
“Interests elsewhere in Honduras, the Bay Islands, western Cuba, the Yucatan Peninsula, and the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico should monitor the progress of Nate”, the NHC has advised.
The hurricane watch includes the New Orleans metro area, an area vulnerable to flooding.
“How much Nate is able to strengthen once it hits those warm waters depends a lot on how intact the center of the storm can maintain as it traverses land”, CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller said.
The Mexican government, which is still picking up the pieces from a recent deadly natural disaster, has issued a tropical storm warning for the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula and some nearby islands.
The track of the storm will bring it north rather quickly.
The storm also caused extensive damage to infrastructure in Nicaragua.
Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Organism blamed seven deaths in that country on the storm and said 15 people were missing.
Gov. Rick Scott sits with local officials and law enforcement to discuss Tropical Storm Nate ahead of the weekend.
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President Luis Guillermo Solis said earlier that more than 5,000 residents were being housed in shelters due to flooding. Nate was expected to travel over the Caribbean Sea Thursday night and Friday. Winds of 75 miles per hour and gusts to 90 miles per hour are expected near the Alabama coast.
