Flooding in the south of the country

frank tench

A severe weather system caused flooding in several areas across the southernmost districts on Monday.  Some reports from the south say that on the Santana and Barranco roads, children on buses were stranded by the deluge. The students were evacuated on Monday and have since returned to their villages.  No one was injured.  Representatives from NEMO visited the area today and determined that by the end of the day, the road would be clear for vehicular traffic. The floods caught many off-guard but the Meteorological Department has been forecasting stormy weather in Toledo. News Five spoke to Frank Tench, a senior meteorologist at the MET department, about what caused the floods.

Jose Sanchez

“What’s causing the flooding in the south of Belize?”

Frank Tench, Meteorologist

“We’ve been having quite a few days of intense rains in the southern part of the country and these rains have been occurring on successive nights especially in the south. So because of that the water has accumulated and as a result of that there has been some flooding in the south of the country. The rains had been caused partly by a northward intrusion of an inter-tropical convergent zone.  That has been pretty active over the last few days and the showers have been quite intense. Even some of the showers we experienced in Belize City yesterday are associated with the thunderstorms and showers which had been occurring in the extreme south of the country.”

Jose Sanchez

“Waters, anything to do with high tide?”

Frank Tench

“Not necessarily, because in the southern parts of the country it’s high ground and tides wouldn’t necessarily have the same effect that they would have in intense rainfall that sometimes occur in Belize City. You have to remember Belize City is at or below sea level so on occasions when you have high tides and heavy rains, both factors combine to produce the intense flooding that sometimes occurred.”

Jose Sanchez

“The system, is this something that was forecasted?”

Frank Tench

“Yes, we’ve been mentioning it in the forecast for quite a few days that showers and thunderstorms would occur predominantly in the south and then spread inland during the court of the day. Perhaps, the intensity of showers and thunderstorms was not something we had been prepared for but the occurrence of these in the south on a regular basis has been something we were expecting and we’ve been observing it consistently.”

Jose Sanchez

“So this is something we should be monitoring it over the next few days?”

Frank Tench

“Well, I think we’re gonna get a decrease in the showers for another few days because the hurricane that’s out to the northwest of Leeward Islands, that’s going to have an effect by creating a slight pressure gradient and as a result cause a sort of drying up of the showers and thunderstorms we’ve been experiencing over the last two days. So I’d say for the next two days at least weather conditions should be much better for the greater part of country and in particularly the south.”

The Toledo District Education Manager says regular classes for high schools will resume on Wednesday September first, the day also scheduled for the opening of primary schools.