Hurricane Nana forms and makes landfall in Belize, and 2 tropical waves forecast to merge
Hurricane Nana formed Wednesday night, becoming the sixth hurricane of the 2020 season. It made landfall early Thursday in Belize, the National Hurricane Center said.
The center is also tracking a tropical depression and two tropical waves, which for now pose no threat to land.
As of 2 a.m., Hurricane Nana had 75-mph winds, and is forecast to rapidly weaken as it moves inland.
The Category 1 hurricane has hurricane-force winds extending 10 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extending up to 70 miles.
The hurricane watch covering most of Belize’s eastern coast was upgraded to a hurricane warning Wednesday morning. The northern end of the coast remained under a hurricane watch. Guatemala’s Caribbean coast, the southern end of the Yucatán Peninsula, Isla Roatán and the Bay Islands of Honduras were under a tropical storm warning Wednesday. The northern coast of Honduras was under a tropical storm watch.
The hurricane center said the storm could bring 1 to 3 feet of storm surge and 4 to 8 inches of rainfall to the region.
In the northeast, Tropical Storm Omar weakened to a tropical depression as it continued its eastern track. As of the 11 p.m. update, forecasters said Omar was barely a tropical cyclone, and they predicted it would dissolve into a remnant low Thursday.
There are also two waves to watch in the Atlantic, as of the 8 p.m. update: one midway between Africa and the Caribbean, and one just off the African coast. The hurricane center said it expects the two to merge in the next day or so.
“Gradual development of this system is then possible, and a tropical depression could form over the weekend or early next week while it moves westward over the eastern and central tropical Atlantic Ocean,” forecasters said.
The hurricane center gave the combined system a low chance of forming in the next couple of days at 20% but upped its chance of forming this week to 60%.
The next storm name is Paulette.
This story was originally published September 2, 2020 at 9:09 AM.
