[Breaking news alert, posted at 1:25 p.m. ET Thursday]
Hurricane Otto made landfall in Nicaragua on Thursday. The Category 2 storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 110 mph and moving west at 9 mph as it hit the southern Nicaraguan coast near the town of San Juan de Nicaragua, the National Hurricane Center said.
[Previous story, posted at 11:00 a.m. ET Thursday]
Families evacuated homes in coastal Nicaragua Thursday as Hurricane Otto neared.
The Category 2 storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 110 mph as it churned west Thursday morning, threatening to bring torrential downpours and flash floods to Nicaragua and neighboring Costa Rica. The storm has already killed at least three people in Panama.
And it could get stronger before it makes landfall, the National Hurricane Center warned.
As of 10 a.m ET, the storm was about 75 miles (120 km) south-southeast of Bluefields, Nicaragua. Some residents in the coastal city evacuated from their homes Thursday morning, carrying pets and bags full of belongings as they made their way to a shelter, state media reported.
Others began evacuating on Wednesday.
“The worry is that it will be very dangerous for everybody. Of course it scares us, because we are human beings, and you can’t play with nature,” Bluefields resident Juliana Rojas told CNN en Español as the storm neared.
Bernardo Reina said he’d been stocking up on supplies and would be hunkering down when the storm hit.
“I am ready, with bags, with everything I need, with bottled water,” he said.
Hurricane warnings have been issued for parts of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Rainfall in the region could exceed 15 inches in some areas, producing life-threatening flash flooding and landslides.
While the Caribbean is one of the few areas with warm enough water to support a hurricane this late in the season, a storm making landfall this far south is extremely rare.
This portion of Central America is unaccustomed to hurricane landfalls. It also has steep terrain, which makes the area prone to flooding and landslides from a slow-moving storm like Otto.
Otto formed in the southern Caribbean early this week. The storm has steadily strengthened and on Tuesday afternoon became the seventh hurricane of the season in the Atlantic basin.
If it makes landfall in Nicaragua, it will be the first hurricane to do so since Ida in 2009.
If Otto makes landfall in Costa Rica, it will be that country’s first hurricane landfall in recorded history (since 1851).
Hurricane season officially ends on November 30, and while the month of November can have named storms, the season is generally winding down. Impactful storms are infrequent occurrences, especially this late in November.