Tropical Storm Pilar has caused two deaths in El Salvador, according to officials, as heavy rainfall and flash flooding continue Wednesday over portions of Central America.
SAN SALVADOR, El, Salvador – Tropical Storm Pilar has been blamed for two deaths in El Salvador, according to officials, as heavy rainfall and flash flooding continue Wednesday over portions of Central America.
Fermín Pérez, the assistant director of El Salvador’s civil defense office, said a 24-year-old man and a 57-year-old woman were swept away by swollen streams Sunday in the province of La Union, the Associated Press reported. Their bodies were found Monday.
View of the Lempa River during a red alert decreed by the government as Tropical Storm Pilar threatened to make landfall, in San Marcos Lempa, El Salvador, taken on October 31, 2023.
(MARVIN RECINOS/AFP)A man rides on a bicycle under the rain during the red alert decreed by the government as Tropical Storm Pilar threatened to make landfall, in Jiquilisco, El Salvador, on October 31, 2023.
(MARVIN RECINOS/AFP)Two people cover themselves from the rain with umbrellas during the red alert decreed by the government as Tropical Storm Pilar threatened to make landfall, in Jiquilisco, El Salvador, on October 31, 2023.
(MARVIN RECINOS/AFP)Cows are guided along a road during a red alert decreed by the government as Tropical Storm Pilar threatened to make landfall, in Jiquilisco, El Salvador, on October 31, 2023.
(MARVIN RECINOS/AFP)A soldier guards an entry to the port of La Libertad during the onset of the Tropical Storm Pilar.
(Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/LightRocket)
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Pilar is now moving westward away from the Pacific coast of Central America as Tropical Storm Watches for portions of Nicaragua and Honduras have expired. However, a Tropical Storm Watch remains in effect for the entire Pacific coast of El Salvador.
Pilar is expected to produce additional rainfall of 2 to 4 inches, with local amounts to 6 inches, for portions of Central America from southern El Salvador, across southern Honduras, western Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica through Wednesday, the NHC noted. The additional rainfall will likely produce flash and urban flooding, along with mudslides in areas of higher terrain.
Swells generated by Pilar are expected to continue affecting the Pacific coast of Central America during the next couple of days, the NHC said. These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.
(FOX Weather)
Pilar is about 120 miles southwest of San Salvador, El Salvador, moving northwest at 7 mph. Maximum sustained winds are 60 mph, and tropical-storm-force winds (39-plus mph) stretch out 80 miles.
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On the forecast track, the center of Pilar will continue moving away from the coast of Central America through the weekend. Pilar is the 16th named tropical cyclone in the Eastern Pacific.
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More hurricane season to go
Another disturbance is located several hundred miles south-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula. This system has been dubbed Invest 93E by the NHC, which gives it only a low chance of developing into a tropical depression in the next two days as it moves into unfavorable conditions.
An invest is a naming convention the NHC uses to identify areas they are investigating for possible development.
If the disturbance did strengthen into a tropical storm, it would be named Ramon.
The hurricane season in the Pacific ends on Nov. 30.
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(FOX Weather)