Last night, from central to northern Belize the rain poured down in torrents. Here in the city, it seemed like it wouldn't stop and the water in our clogged-up, drain-deficient city just kept rising and rising.
City residents, especially those on ground floors or in low lying pockets, witnessed buckets of rain – which raised the water level by over a foot. But the MET Office – which had predicted rains - says they only picked up two-plus inches. Here's the Chief Met Officer:
Dennis Gonguez - Chief Met Officer
"We had some rainfall about 2 to 2 1/2 inches over the Northern parts of the country. Belize City and the International Airport had just about 2 1/2 inches of rainfall and all indications are that we will have some more rainfall but not of the same amounts that we had last night. There will be some decreases, we'll probably get to about two inches of rainfall during the morning time on Thursday with some decreases later on on Thursday afternoon."
Jules Vasquez
"Did you expect such voluminous rainfall?"
Dennis Gonguez
"We get about 2 1/2 inches here in the city and that amount to me is not voluminous, the effects would sort of outweigh the quantity of water that we see. The flooding effects from the rains overshadowed the amount of rainfall that we have seen."
Jules Vasquez
"We know this will be a very active weekend in terms of social activities and celebration activities - we have the expo in Belize City, we have the Carnival as well - will those events be consequentially affected by the rain?"
Dennis Gonguez
"Well beside the saturated ground - it seems that all indications are that as this system moves away, we'll start to see some gradual improvements. So by the time the weekend comes around we should see generally fair weather conditions."
Crispin Jeffries - Deputizing for National Emergency Coordinator
"As we speak the weather forecast is suggesting that things are slowing down but there are other systems already being looked at by the weather center in the United States. So we encourage Belizeans to be more alert and participate in the festivities but be prepared to move."
Dennis Gonguez
"We've just passed the peak of the Hurricane Season yesterday was the statistical peak of the Hurricane season. However, there's a secondary peak in October and at that time we become more vulnerable, end of September into October."
As much as 2 inches of rain is expected tomorrow in Central and particularly northern Belize. The system is moving slowly to the west towards the bay of Campeche.
Email
Print