Tropical Storm Sara (2024)

Tropical Storm Sara was a strong tropical storm that caused widespread destruction and loss of life in the Caribbean in early November 2024. The eighteenth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, Sara developed on November 7 from a broad area of low pressure that had formed a few days earlier in the southwestern Caribbean Sea. Moving northeastward, Sara became a tropical storm early on November 8 and continued to intensify amid favorable environmental conditions. Early on November 9, Sara reached its peak intensity with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph (100 km/h). The storm brushed Haiti's Tiburon Peninsula later that day before making landfall in Maisí, Cuba at 22:00 UTC. Accelerating rapidly northeastward into the North Atlantic, Sara began to weaken and lose its tropical characteristics. Late on November 11, Sara became a post-tropical cyclone while well off the North Carolina coast. The extratropical remnant of Sara was then absorbed by a larger system over Atlantic Canada on November 12.

Although a relatively weak system, Sara dropped copious amounts of rainfall over the Greater Antilles, resulting in widespread flooding and mudslides. In Jamiaca, flooding caused by the storm resulted in eight fatalities and $60 million in damages. The most severe effects from the tropical storm occured in Haiti, where flooding and mudslides caused by the storm's outer rainbands resulted in 47 fatalities and $370 million in damages. Damages in Cuba included six fatalities and $80 million in damages, while effects elsewhere were minor.