About a week and a half ago, stores, banks and businesses countrywide closed down early in preparation for Tropical Storm Franklin. Fortunately for us, Franklin veered north, and his rains and winds had very little effect on Northern Belize.
But before you can properly say, "Farewell Franklin", it may already be time to say "Hello Harvey!" - with a clear sense of dread!
That's right, today, a weather system that formed off the coast of Africa has made its way into the Caribbean, and as of 3:00 this afternoon, has been upgraded to a tropical storm, and its projected path has it coming straight to Belize by early next week. Now, we stress this is just a projection, but we spoke to the Deputy Chief Meteorologist, Catherine Cumberbatch, to get a clearer idea of where this storm may be heading...
Catherine Cumberbatch - Deputy Chief Meteorologist
"As I, Alex, earlier today one of the hurricane hunters went in to investigate the system that was east of Barbados and they came back with information, their observation and it's shown that the area of disturbed weather that is out there has been upgraded to tropical storm Harvey, Which makes it the 8th tropical system for the 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season."
"Let me just give you a quick where the system is exactly located right now. At 3 pm time the center of tropical storm Harvey was located at Latitude 13.0 N and Longitude 55.8 W, that makes it about 251 miles East of Barbados. The system is moving West near 18 mph and that motion is expected in the next couple of days. Now, with TS Harvey, is being steered by a ridge pattern, a deep layer ridge that is steering the TS Harvey. And with that motion it is expected that TS Harvey will be in the Eastern Caribbean in the next 12-24 hours, in the Central Caribbean by 48-72 hours and in the Western Caribbean, which is out area, by 96-120 hours. That is like on Tuesday we expect on that motion and that forecast track that the system should be in our area at that time."
Cumberbatch warned against listening to rumors about potentially threatening storms circulating around the internet and social media, and urges people to always refer to the latest advisories issued by NEMO and the Met. Office.
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