Tropical Storm Sara brings flooding, mudslides to Honduras

The storm made landfall in northern Honduras on Thursday night with rains causing catastrophic flooding and mudslides by Friday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center. Footage showed brown water rushing through a city street, nearly reaching over the tires of a parked car. Honduras should expect up to 30 inches of rain by Monday, with parts of nearby Belize and Nicaragua to receive between 6 to 12 inches, the center added. The storm’s wind is currently clocking at 50 mph and has affected over 20,000 Hondurans, with hundreds evacuated and a few people missing, according to the UN’s ReliefWeb. Sara already soaked both Panama and Costa Rica, countries still recovering from heavy rainfall from Hurricane Rafael earlier this month.

Where is the storm projected to go? Meteorologists expect Sara to push through inland central America, hitting northern Guatemala, central Belize, and southern Mexico over the weekend. The storm is forecasted to slow down after making landfall but continue moving through the Gulf of Mexico and hit the western Florida coast by the middle of next week.