Hurricane Lisa makes landfall along Central America coast as a Category 1 storm

Lisa intensified into a Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds around 85 mph before making landfall Wednesday near Belize City.

Life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flash flooding will all be significant threats as Lisa moves inland across Belize, northern Guatemala and southeastern Mexico over the next couple of days.

Lisa is the first hurricane to landfall in Belize during the month of November since 1942.

Where is Tropical Cyclone Lisa?

As of late Wednesday, Lisa was centered near Belize and was slowly making its way westward.

Due to the terrain and land interaction, Lisa continues to slowly degrade and is no longer a strong Category 1 hurricane.

What is the forecast for Lisa?

The FOX Forecast Center expects that Lisa will continue to weaken as it tracks westward across Central America. This path means it will cross northern Guatemala and move into southeastern Mexico by Thursday.

Hurricane Lisa will not pose any threat to the U.S. Gulf Coast even though the track takes a weakened tropical depression into the warm Bay of Campeche for the weekend. A cold front sweeping into the Gulf of Mexico will keep Lisa suppressed to the south until it falls apart by early Monday.

“Expect it to weaken some over land – of course, we’re going to be dealing with the impacts of that friction, and it’s going to be raining itself out – but potentially emerging back into the southern Bay of Campeche,” FOX Weather meteorologist Jane Minar said. “We’ll have to watch it closely, but right now, the dynamics over the U.S. mean no concerns are expected. It’s not raising any red flags there.”

What are the expected impacts from Lisa?

According to the FOX Forecast Center, Lisa is expected to produce 4 to 6 inches of rain across parts of Belize and northern Guatemala, as well as portions of the Mexican states of Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, Chiapas and Veracruz. Localized areas could see up to 10 inches of rainfall.

The far southeastern portion of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, the Bay Islands of Honduras, central Guatemala and south-central Campeche state in Mexico could see 2 to 4 inches of rain, with isolated amounts as high as 6 inches.

The heavy rainfall could lead to flash flooding in these areas along the path ofLisa, particularly across Belize and into northern Guatemala, the far southeastern portion of the Yucatán Peninsula and portions of the Mexican states of Campeche, Tabasco, Chiapas and Veracruz.

In addition, a life-threatening storm surge will likely raise water levels by as much as 4 to 7 feet above normal tide levels near and to the north of where the center of Hurricane Lisa crosses the coast of Belize and in extreme southeastern portions of the Yucatán Peninsula.

Elsewhere, a storm surge of 2 to 4 feet is possible within the Tropical Storm Warning area along the eastern Yucatán Peninsula, with 1 to 3 feet possible for the Bay Islands of Honduras.

2022 Atlantic hurricane season running close to average

Lisa is the 12th named storm and the sixth hurricane of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season. Martin became the season’s 13th storm on Tuesday in the central North Atlantic and later became the seventh hurricane on Wednesday.

This is only the third time on record that there have been two November hurricanes simultaneously in the Atlantic. The previous years were 1932 and 2001.

An average season in the Atlantic features 14 named storms and seven hurricanes, so the season is running very close to average as of early November.

The Atlantic hurricane season doesn’t officially end until Nov. 30, which means there’s still some time for an additional storm to develop. In fact, an area in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean is currently being monitored for possible tropical development over the next several days.