The 2026 Eastern Pacific hurricane season has produced its second named storm, and the first tropical hazard for Central America, as Tropical Storm Cristina formed off Nicaragua’s Pacific coastline over the weekend. Upgraded from Tropical Depression Three-E by the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) on Monday afternoon, the system has already triggered official warnings across a wide stretch of the region’s Pacific shoreline.
As of the NHC’s latest update, Cristina is positioned roughly 105 miles west-northwest of Nicaragua’s capital Managua. The storm currently carries maximum sustained winds of 45 miles per hour and is creeping northeastward at just 3 miles per hour, a glacial pace that has raised concerns among forecasters and local emergency management teams. A Tropical Storm Warning is now in effect for the entire Pacific coast from Nicaragua’s Puerto Sandino northward to the border crossing between Guatemala and El Salvador.
Authorities across Nicaragua and El Salvador have activated continuous monitoring protocols, as current projections show the system will remain stalled near the Central American coastline for multiple days. The primary danger posed by Cristina is not extreme wind, but extreme precipitation: forecasters warn that prolonged, heavy rainfall will sweep through parts of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala through the middle of the week, creating conditions for life-threatening flash flooding and catastrophic landslides.
The NHC projects widespread rainfall accumulations between 4 and 8 inches across the region, with isolated, hard-hit areas seeing as much as 12 inches of rain. Low-lying coastal communities and mountainous villages, which are particularly prone to soil displacement and flash inundation, have been flagged as the most vulnerable populations. While meteorologists predict Cristina will slowly weaken in strength by midweek, its unusually slow forward movement means the threat of sustained rainfall will be stretched out across days, amplifying the risk of weather-related disasters.
Cristina marks the second named storm of the 2026 Eastern Pacific hurricane season, following closely on the heels of Tropical Storm Boris. That earlier system formed off Mexico’s Pacific coast, moved inland over southern Mexico, and dissipated fully by Tuesday.