This morning Eta was just a tropical storm. As of 10 pm tonight, Eta is a major hurricane with sustained winds of 150 mph and getting stronger. It is moving slowly west and is expected to hit the Nicaraguan coast sometime Tuesday morning, with incredible winds, storm surge of up to 18 feet, and torrential rain that could be up to 30 inches in some mountainous places. Last time we had a storm like this, Hurricane Mitch in 1998, there were over 11,000 fatalities from the storm due to landslides, flooding, and wind-blown damage. Mitch left over 20 percent of the population of Honduras homeless after the storm damaged or destroyed 85,000 houses. Hurricane Eta could be just as bad. After it comes onshore, it is expected to drift slowly north and then northeast back out over the very warm Caribbean water, where it could redevelop as it heads towards Cuba. That is a long ways off, but we need to watch it in case it moves north towards Florida and the US.