Hurricane Julia raked across Nicaragua on Sunday, lashing the country with winds and heavy rain and bringing potentially life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides to much of Central America and southern Mexico.
Maximum sustained winds were estimated at 85 miles (140 kilometers) per hour when the storm made landfall near the Laguna de Perlas area at 0715 GMT, the country’s weather agency said.
By midday, the fifth Atlantic hurricane of the season had weakened to a tropical storm with top sustained winds of nearly 60 miles per hour as it churned westward across Nicaragua, unleashing a dangerous storm surge along the coast, damaging homes in the country’s interior and leaving some towns incommunicado.
The country was on high alert, with civil defense brigades helping to clear fallen trees from roads and watch for flooding in coastal towns and mountain villages. No fatalities have been reported.
But the US National Hurricane Centre warned that Julia, whose centre passed over the Central American isthmus into the eastern Pacific ocean Sunday night, was still packing a punch, not just for Nicaragua but for neighboring countries.
“Heavy rainfall with a risk of life-threatening flash floods and mudslides to continue across Central America and southern Mexico through Tuesday,” the NHC said.
Maintaining its tropical storm strength, Julia is forecast to produce five to 10 inches (12.7 to 25.4 centimeters) of rain in Nicaragua and El Salvador, with isolated pockets receiving as much as 15 inches.
Hours earlier in Bluefields, Nicaragua, one of the main coastal towns buffeted by the storm, fishermen had been busy safeguarding their boats as people rushed to buy groceries and withdraw money from ATMs.