HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba’s meteorology office warned on Saturday of torrential rain and flooding as Tropical Depression Eta churned northwards towards the Caribbean island, and on track to Florida, after killing more than 70 people in Central America last week.
Eta could strengthen back into a tropical storm over the warm Caribbean waters before making landfall on the southern coast of central Cuba overnight, the office said, warning of coastal flooding and winds of 80-100 km per hour.
Flooding could be a problem more broadly, it said, given Cuba was already waterlogged in the wake of heavy rains of late and Eta could potentially dump more than 300mm of water on central and mountainous regions.
“As the ground is already saturated, any additional rain could provoke inundations especially in mountainous areas and along the rivers,” Cuba’s best known meteorologist Jose Rubiera said on the Friday evening news broadcast on state-run TV.
