Tropical Storm Sara moved slowly toward Belize on Saturday afternoon.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Storm Sara was located at latitude 16.4\u00b0N and longitude 87.0\u00b0W which put the center about 110 miles (175 km) southeast of Belize City, Belize.\u00a0 Sara was moving toward the west at 5 m.p.h. (8 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 45 m.p.h. (75 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 60 m.p.h. (95 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1000 mb.<\/p>\n
A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the portion of the coast from Punta Castilla, Honduras to the border with Guatemala.\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the Bay Islands of Honduras.\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the Caribbean coast of Guatemala.\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the portion of the coast from Belize City, Belize to the border with Guatemala.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n After moving slowly over the Bay Islands and dropping heavy rain on Honduras, Tropical Storm Sara started to move toward Belize on Saturday.\u00a0 The center of Sara’s circulation was over the Northwestern Caribbean Sea just north of the coast of Honduras.\u00a0 A distinct low level center of circulation was evident on visible satellite images.\u00a0 Bands of shower and thunderstorms were revolving around the center of Tropical Storm Sara.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Sara’s circulation generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away from the tropical storm.<\/p>\n A little less than half of the circulation of Tropical Storm Sara was still over land.\u00a0 The strongest winds were occurring in the parts of Sara’s circulation that were over the Caribbean Sea.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 105 miles (165 km) in the northern side of Tropical Storm Sara.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 35 miles (55 km) in the southern side of Sara’s circulation.<\/p>\n Tropical Storm Sara will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 12 hours.\u00a0 Sara will move over water where where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the middle of an upper level ridge over the Caribbean Sea.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak near the middle of the upper level ridge and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 However, the fact that almost half of Sara\u2019s circulation is over land will inhibit intensification.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Sara could intensify during the next 12 hours if the the center of Sara\u2019s circulation remains over water.<\/p>\n Tropical Storm Sara will move around the southern part of a high pressure system over the western Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Sara slowly toward the west during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, the center of Tropical Storm Sara will reach Belize on Saturday night.<\/p>\n Tropical Storm Sara will continue to bring strong winds to the coast of Honduras and to the Bay Islands.\u00a0 Sara will also continue to drop very heavy rain on Honduras.\u00a0 The fact that Sara is moving so slowly will result in a prolonged period of heavy rain near the coast of Honduras. Prolonged heavy rain will very likely cause catastrophic floods and mudslides.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Sara will also drop heavy rain over Belize and eastern Guatemala on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tropical Storm Sara moved slowly toward Belize on Saturday afternoon.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Storm Sara was located at latitude 16.4\u00b0N and longitude 87.0\u00b0W which put the center about 110 miles (175 km) southeast of Belize City, Belize.\u00a0 Sara was moving toward the west at 5 m.p.h. (8 km\/h).\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[877,878,2156,58,3781,450,449,2155,3813,3806],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21642,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21641\/revisions\/21642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}