Hurricane Iota: Most powerful Atlantic storm of 2020 makes landfall

‘Bomb’ hurricane is most powerful Atlantic storm since a 1932 Cuba hurricane

Hurricane Iota made a devastating landfall on the northeast coast of Nicaragua on Monday night as a category four storm, threatening significant damage to the same region hit by the similarly powerful Hurricane Eta less than two weeks ago.

Iota reached land with powerful winds of up to 155 mph (250 km/h), bringing the threat of catastrophic winds, flash floods and landslides to swathes of Central America, according to the latest update by the US’s National Hurricane Center (NHC).

The hurricane made landfall just around 15 miles (25 km) south of where Hurricane Eta hit, also as a category four storm, on 3 November even as aid work continued to reach communities cut off by destroyed roads and bridges.

Iota had intensified to become a record-setting category five storm, the most powerful in the Atlantic this year, early on Monday but slightly weakened as it approached Nicaragua.

The first visuals coming from the region show trees getting uprooted by the wind and the roofs of houses being ripped off.

"What's drawing closer is a bomb," President Juan Orlando Hernández of neighbouring Honduras said during a news conference.  

Neighbouring El Salvador has also declared a “red alert”, suspending most activities and releasing relief funding for the storm.  

According to the NHC, Nicaragua and Honduras are expected to see storm surges of as much as 15 to 20 feet (4.6 to 6.1 metres) above normal tides. However, it is expected to weaken quickly after making the landfall. 

The hurricane will dump at least 30 inches (76 cm) of rain in the affected areas in the next few days as its progress slows down inland, forecasters say.

Iota is the second-fiercest category five storm ever recorded in the Atlantic basin in November, after a 1932 hurricane that devastated Cuba, according to AccuWeather.

At least 200 people were left dead or missing after storm Eta wreaked havoc in Guatemala and other central American nations. The hurricane lingered for hours, brining huge amounts of rainfall and mudslides which buried dozens of homes in the village of Quejá.