Earl Update: Likely To Be Hurricane When It Hits Belize

Tropical Storm Earl this morning entering the Bay of Houndoura
and heading toward Belize ( left side of satellite photo)
Earl is expected to strengthen to a hurricane
by the time it reached Belize. 

Tropical Storm Earl was still chugging westward, and it's on a collision course with the Central American coast, most likely Belize.

The National Hurricane Center said Tropical Storm Earl this morning had top winds of 70 mph and was still strengthening.

By the time it hits the coast in or near Belize tonight or Thursday, it will likely be a hurricane, with sustained winds of at least 75 mph.  

Belize is hit by hurricanes on average once a decade.

This won't be the strongest hurricane ever in the region, but there's still going to be a lot of trouble with damaging winds, a storm surge and flooding. There will surely be a fair amount of damage in Belize an surrounding areas.

Even before Earl became a tropical storm, it brought strong winds to the Dominican Republic. That downed power lines, one of which set a bus on fire, killing six people. 

Earl will plow inland into Mexico and fall apart. The storm poses no threat to the United States.

At the moment, there's no other tropical storms threatening to develop anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean, but I'm sure that will change as we keep moving through the month of August.