Tropical Storm Iota forms in Caribbean and will likely become a major hurricane

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/11/13/iota-caribbean-nicaragua-hurricane/

 

By Matthew Cappucci
November 13, 2020 at 4:12 p.m. EST

Tropical Storm Iota formed in the eastern Caribbean on Friday afternoon, set to become a powerful major hurricane and threaten areas of the western Caribbean still reeling from Hurricane Eta that hit just last week.

Iota is the season’s 30th named storm, an unprecedented milestone that brings us deeper into uncharted territory. It comes days after Tropical Storm Theta formed and broke the record for the most named storms ever observed in a single Atlantic hurricane season. 

The development of a new storm in the Caribbean is particularly concerning, given Eta’s disastrous and deadly flooding that stretched across Honduras and Guatemala. Nicaragua bore the brunt of the storm’s disastrous Category 4 impact, and the current forecast for what is expected to be a powerful Hurricane Iota places this storm on a similar track.

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Iota is set to become the 13th hurricane of the 2020 season; only one other year, 2005, produced this many hurricanes.

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“The system has the potential to produce 20 to 30 inches of rain with a focus across northern Nicaragua and Honduras,” wrote the Hurricane Center. “This rainfall would lead to significant, life-threatening flash flooding and river flooding, along with landslides in areas of higher terrain.”

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tags: extreme weather, severe weather,