QCOSTARICA – Tropical storm Eta would become a hurricane today, Monday, when it reaches winds of 118 kilometers per hour and it is expected that it will reach the shores of Nicaragua with that category.
It is currently about 800 kilometers east of the city of Limón and depending on the speed of travel, it could be that on Tuesday it will make landfall.
According to the national weather service, the Instituto Meteorológico Nacional (IMN), this cyclone maintained sustained winds of more than 85 km/h on Sunday and was moving at 24 km/h in the direction of the Central American isthmus.
The influence of the cyclone attracts the intertropical convergence zone over the territory and since this Sunday it generates a constant influx of humidity and cloudiness from the Pacific.
In Osa, in the southern Pacific, it began to rain heavily at the end of Sunday afternoon, the same as in Buenos Aires, but in Corredores and Golfito the downpours began earlier.
The president of the National Emergency Commission (NCE), Alex Solís, said on Sunday that some rivers in the southern area are already swollen, such as the Ceibo, the Seco and Corredores.
Solís called on the residents of areas at risk to comply with the evacuation requests that may be issued by the municipal emergency committees, which will depend on the evolution of the phenomenon and its trajectory.
At the moment, the alerts have not changed, the yellow continues for the entire country, with the exception of the Caribbean, where they are on green alert.
“Sometimes the population is reluctant to move to shelters or to the homes of friends and family and, although that is very understandable, we have to understand that we are handling an emergency situation due to probable floods in the midst of the pandemic and this makes us have to redouble efforts,” Solís said.
That is why he insisted that people who have a health confinement order for COVID-19 or have a close family member with the virus, notify first responders in case of an emergency.
According to Rebeca Morera, meteorologist at the IMN, the indirect effects of the cyclone will continue to tend to reach other sectors of the country, which is why she called on the population to inform themselves periodically through the official media.
For now, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) envisions that as Eta enters land in Central America it will begin to weaken, but it will be today when more precise data will be available, depending on the conditions that it encounters as it passes through the Caribbean.
In Nicaragua this Sunday they began to evacuate inhabitants of several Caribbean islands.
Eta is the 29th tropical storm of the season.
Residents of areas vulnerable to floods and landslides must be vigilant and have visualized from now on the site to which they must move so as not to be exposed.
Drivers are reminded to slow down as the roads are wet and falling material, which include mus, trees and branches.
