Met Service Issues Caution About Approaching Tropical Wave

There is going to be a whole lot of rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning in some areas, as a strong tropical wave crosses over Belize starting tonight and for the next day. The weather system entered the Caribbean Sea earlier this week and moved in a northwesterly direction. Chief Meteorologist, Ronald Gordon told the media that Belize is not under any threat of a tropical cyclone watch or warning and that the system has not developed into a tropical depression or a tropical storm. According to Gordon, there is little to no chance of the system becoming anything more than a tropical wave before it gets here, but the amount of rainfall it is expected to produce is significant.

 

Ronald Gordon, Chief Meteorologist

“In my calculation and based on the forecast models, the axis of this wave will cross the country early tomorrow morning, between midnight and six in the morning. However, the effects of the wave – the rainfall will begin affecting the country from late Thursday evening to tonight, intensifying throughout the night into tomorrow morning. Rainfall model projections are suggesting that for the first twenty-four hours, that is from about this evening into tomorrow evening, we can get up to two to four inches of rainfall with locally higher values from this tropical wave. As the system moves west of the country, we expect rainfall to decrease on Saturday to about one to two inches, then for Sunday, a further decrease. Apart from the very heavy rainfall, intense thunderstorm activity and lightning activity, we can expect it to become very gusty, especially during thunderstorms, leading to very rough sea conditions. So, certainly, apart from the excessive rainfall watch that we have in effect at the moment, which would likely be upgraded to an excessive rainfall warning by this evening, we will certainly issue a caution to mariners to be extremely careful out at sea because we do know that once you get this burst of activity during thunderstorms, you can have very strong winds and rough sea conditions.”