But first, we get the overview from the Met Department. They've been watching this Tropical Wave since last week – and were caught slightly off guard on the weekend when it formed into a depression 50 miles off the coast of Belize.
Today, Chief Met Officer Dennis Gonguez told us that the weather system has produced heavy, but not record rainfall.
Dennis Gonguez - Chief MET Officer
"As tropical depression #2 moves away, we're still getting some rainfall around the country. The numbers range from 2 1/2 inches in the north to about 3 1/2 inches in the west and as high as 7 inches in the south. This has led to some flooding in some sections in the southern parts of the country. In the past 24 hours since the system was called a tropical depression we were close to about 10 inches in the south, in the previous 24 hours we had about 3 inches in the south so we're pretty much close to 10 inches in the south to this time. We tend to focus on Tropical storms and hurricanes with their wind damage but however tropical depressions can provide us with copious amount of rainfall resulting in flooding."
Jules Vasquez
"Sir, are you able to speak about the behavior of the system as it came on land at about 6pm yesterday?"
Dennis Gonguez
"Well the track took a little jog to the north, however from there it was difficult to identify a center, even presently today -the last bulletin in the last satellite pictures it was hard for us to identify the center of circulation. So the system is heading over land at this time and is quite possibly going to downgrade as a tropical wave before the day is out."
Jules Vasquez
"Have we seen the worst of it?"
Dennis Gonguez
"Well we should start to see some improvements although it will continue wet for another two to three days, we won't see that copious amount of rain fall that we had on Sunday and Monday."
Jules Vasquez
"Is it in usual behavior, typical behavior for a system to develop right on Belize's doorstep at this time of year?"
Dennis Gonguez
"The development of the system into a depression just about 50-60 miles from us was - we didn't expect it to develop into a depression so near to us. Even the folks at the National Hurricane Center in Miami had a 40% genesis potential on the system up to yesterday morning. Suddenly about 8;30 they called me and told me they were upgrading it to a Tropical Depression - so even the experts in Miami did not know it would have become a tropical depression."
Gonguez says when TD2 or what's left of it re-emerges into the Bay of Campeche it could again be upgraded into a significant weather system.
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