The tropics are still active. As the week ends, we are watching Tropical Storm Julia, which is likely to become the next hurricane. This system is forecast to continue traveling westward and make landfall in Nicaragua this weekend.

On Friday morning, the National Hurricane Center stated that Tropical Depression 13 had gained a bit of strength and has maximum sustained winds at 40 mph. Julia will continue gaining strength and become a hurricane on Saturday.

Extreme rainfall has affected northern Venezuela and Colombia’s Guajira Peninsula. Heavy rains will continue Friday as the system starts to pull away and move west. Life-threatening flash floods are also possible for Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao even through the beginning of the weekend.

Conditions will quickly start to deteriorate by Saturday late afternoon across the Colombia islands of San Andres and Providencia. We forecast Julia to become a hurricane as it moves over the western Caribbean and approaches the small islands, increasing the wind threat which will come with heavy rains, too.

By Sunday morning, the weather will take a downward turn across Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast. Julia is forecast to make landfall on Sunday well south of Puerto Cabezas as a strong category 1 hurricane.

Impacts on Nicaragua will be strong winds over the coast and storm surge, especially across the northeastern coast. The main threat will be the heavy rains as there will be plenty of moisture traveling over the country and moving into Honduras early next week. These countries are still dealing with the recovery from the 2020 and 2021 seasons, where several hurricanes hit the same areas back-to-back.

Lots of the moisture will travel over Honduras and eventually make it to the southern portion of Mexico by midweek next week. For the latter part of the week, we are monitoring the chance for this moisture to swing back to the northeast and possibly affect the Deep South.