‘Eta’ made landfall in northeastern Nicaragua as a powerful category 4 hurricane on Tuesday afternoon. Wind damage was catastrophic near the coast, in addition to storm surge flooding. That being said, it has been the heavy rainfall, freshwater flooding, and landslides that have been the most impactful and widespread problem so far.

The big reason for that is the storm’s painfully slow speed. As of 11am EST Wednesday, Eta is a minimal tropical storm and continues to weaken; but it’s inching along at only 7 mph and continues to pound parts of Honduras and Nicaragua with heavy rain. Isolated rainfall amounts could be as high as 40″ when all is said and done.

By Friday, Eta (or at least its remnants) will re-emerge over the northwest Caribbean Sea – at which point at least some re-strengthening should occur. With a general northward motion over the weekend, Florida needs to be on guard for potential impacts early next week. At this point, it’s still too early to speculate the severity and location of those possible impacts. We’ll have updates for you daily here on myfoxhurricane.com, so be sure to check back with us.

‘Eta’ was nearly a hurricane as of 10pm EST Sunday evening. The center of the storm is currently located about 200 miles east of the Nicaragua/Honduras border. Given the very warm water in this part of the Caribbean and the very limited wind shear present, the storm should have no problem continuing to strengthen up until the point landfall late Monday night – possibly becoming a major hurricane.

Damaging winds, and storm surge as high 10-15 feet can be expected close to the where the storm ends up making landfall. The biggest, and farthest reaching impact however, is going to be torrential rain and subsequent threat for landslides. As the storm slows over land, as much as 3 feet of rain could fall in some locations.

Some model guidance suggests that either the storm itself or its remnants will re-emerge over the northwestern Caribbean by next weekend. Such a scenario brings with it a lot of uncertainty, and for now is just something to keep an eye through the week.