Flooding rain and mudslides from Tropical Storm Agatha and possibleadditional eruptions from Pacaya Volcano are threatening Guatemala thisweekend.A volcano, named Pacaya, located about 15 miles south of Guatemala City,erupted Thursday, showering the capital city with up to 3 inches of ash.
The ash covered the landscape in Guatemala City and nearby areas, includingrunways and aircraft at La Aurora airport, which remained closed into theweekend.
The volcano has been spewing ash and lava flows on occasion since themid-1960s.
While activity of Pacaya was diminishing into Saturday, seismologists wereconcerned for another major eruption soon.
The grounds surrounding a church in Calderas, Guatemala were covered withash Friday, May 28, 2010, following the eruption of Pacaya Volcano. AP Photo /Moises Castillo.According to the Associated Press, officials have asked the nearly threemillion residents of Guatemala City to "not" leave their homes. However, atleast 1,600 people in villages nearest the plume of ash and stones wereevacuated. Close to 1,000 homes had been damaged or destroyedAccording to CNN, a TV reporter and two villagers were killed by a rain ofstones hurled by the eruption.
The fate of three children said to be missing was not known.
Meanwhile, offshore in the nearby Eastern Pacific Ocean, an area of showers andthunderstorms became better organized Friday night and strengthened into theAmericas first tropical depression of the season early Saturday morning.
The system strengthened at midday and is now Tropical Storm Agatha in theEastern Pacific Basin.
To make matters worse, the system was drifting east toward the area impacted bythe erupting Pacaya.
Agatha was already dropping areas of heavy rain on Guatemala and southernMexico.
From 10 to 20 inches of rain is forecast to fall on part of southeasternMexico, Guatemala and El Salvador into early next week by AccuWeather.commeteorologists. Up to 3 feet of rain could fall on the mountains and hillsidesin the region.
While thus far the threat from the volcano is suffocating ash and airbornestones in the immediate vicinity and downwind of the mountain, the risk of lossof life from flash flooding and mudslides from Agatha is very high over a verybroad area.
It is possible a spin-off from Agatha could generate into the Atlantic Basin'sfirst tropical depression or storm of the 2010 season, after moving eastwardthrough the mountains of Central America.
By Alex Sosnowski, Expert Senior Meteorologist, AccuWeather.com
