Tropical rainstorm bearing down on Central America

AccuWeather

A system that could become a named tropical storm before making landfall is heading right for Belize.

Transcript

00:00From Cancun South, tomorrow morning around midday, there may be a landfalling system.

00:05There will be an area of low pressure that makes landfall, but there's a chance this

00:08could become Nadine.

00:09It's going to be a short, fused storm, not long-lasting, but we're dealing at this

00:13moment with a tropical rainstorm over the western Caribbean.

00:17That's closing in on the Belize and Mexico coast.

00:20And then another tropical rainstorm is a bit more concise, consolidated, small, pesky

00:24zone of some thunderstorms and rain.

00:26That's staying well north of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

00:29Water temps are still warm enough to support development here in the mid-80s in the western

00:32part of the Caribbean.

00:33Also fairly warm in the Gulf, although the Gulf oceanic heat content is back down to

00:38average for this time of the year, after things really got churned up in a big way by both

00:42Helene and Milton.

00:45But one really great sign here, and again, a lot of the time the hurricane season, what

00:49ends it in the Gulf is wind shear, more so than the water temps.

00:53The water's still warm for a bit, but look at this wind shear.

00:56This is not necessarily the end of the hurricane season for the Gulf coast of the U.S.

01:01But if we can hold on to a pattern like this for a few more weeks, then that would begin

01:05to signify the beginning of the end of the season, at least for direct U.S. impacts.

01:10We can't call that with any confidence quite yet, though.

01:12What we can say is this weekend we are well protected by strong wind shear from Florida

01:18into Texas.

01:19Farther south, though, we have some concerns.

01:21The lighter pastel colors here, that's where we have limited wind shear, and we could see

01:25some development north of Hispaniola.

01:27We could also see development in a small-scale area here north of Honduras, where those two

01:31tropical rainstorms happen to be located.

01:33So the one north of Honduras here, it'll likely spin up and may become a tropical storm just

01:38for a few hours, maybe six hours, maybe 12 hours around midday tomorrow.

01:42Landfall is likely into Belize.

01:45And while there will be some wind out there, the flooding rain is the main concern.

01:48The tropical storm watches that have been issued tied to this are in effect for northern

01:52Belize and parts of the Mexican coast, mainly south of Cancun and Cozumel.

01:56And, you know, we're forecasting some gusts of wind 40 to 60 miles per hour, but the bigger

02:00issue is the rain.

02:02There are four levels of green here, and the fourth shade is 8 to 12 inches of rain in

02:07parts of Mexico near the coastline and also into the mountains south of Veracruz.

02:11Our AccuWeather local storm max, maybe one rain gauge out there, could see over two feet

02:16of rain into the mountains.

02:18That would be a huge concern.

02:19So because of the flooding tied to this tropical rainstorm that may or may not become Nadine,

02:24we have an AccuWeather real impact scale rating for hurricanes of one for this storm, regardless

02:30of its classification, because it's all about the impacts and that rainfall is the big story.

02:34The other tropical rainstorm, this one is maybe a little more uncertain.

02:38It has a little bit more wind shear in its path as it moves farther west.

02:42But there may still be a small window of opportunity overnight for this to briefly spin up into

02:46a tropical storm.

02:47Some areas, Turks and Caicos, eastern Cuba, gusts of wind 40 plus miles per hour and two

02:52to four inches of rain in some of those areas as well.

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