Hurricane Eta moving over Central America; Southwest Florida in the forecast cone

As of 10 p.m. Tuesday, Hurricane Eta is now a much weaker hurricane than earlier this afternoon when it made landfall. Eta is now a Category 2 hurricane with 105 mph winds.

The current forecast has Eta moving over Nicaragua and Honduras over the next couple days, where it will continue to weaken as it interacts with land. By Friday, Eta or its remnants will reemerge over the northwest Caribbean and be pushed towards Cuba on Saturday by an upper level trough, where it should strengthen to a tropical storm.

After that, it is expected to move farther northeast towards Florida on Sunday as a 60 mph tropical storm. All of Southwest Florida is now in the forecast cone.

So what can we expect? Well, if this forecast verifies, expect cloudy, windy, and wet weather beginning Sunday and possibly continuing through Monday or Tuesday of next week. The good news is, this should be a MUCH weaker system by the time it gets to us (if it ends up heading towards us at all). If it keeps its same forecast intensity, it will not be a life-threatening system.

We’ll likely see lots of changes in both forecast track and intensity over the next couple of days, so make sure you check back in with the updates everyday! We’ll continue to monitor this system 24/7.