Chief Meteorologist Gives Overview of Weekend Weather

Ronald Gordon

Late this evening, we heard from Chief Meteorologist Ronald Gordon on the overall impact of Tropical Storm Julia to Belize. He explained the severe weather that came with those outer bands throughout the weekend. Here is what he had to say via Zoom.

Ronald Gordon, Chief Meteorologist

“As we had expected, the outer bands of this system produced torrential rain falls over the weekend. We saw the rainfalls increasing ahead of this system with a moist easterly airflow over as early as Friday into Saturday, and then the heavier stuff came down on Sunday when the heavier bands began affecting Belize. On Sunday, we had rainfall totals of almost six inches in the Placencia area. In Middlesex, we had about eight inches of rainfall. Eventually on Monday, the reminisce moved further west and affected the western parts of the country, San Ignacio, Santa Elena, where we saw upwards of three  inches of rainfall in a very short period of time producing the flooding event we saw in that area. In terms of other impacts, a part from the rainfall, we had very gusty winds of fifteen to twenty five knots with the system. We also had severe thunderstorms developing and one of those thunderstorms resulted in what we refer to as a microburst affecting portions of the Belize City area whereby you have these sudden surge of wind coming down, hitting the surface of the ground and spreading out very rapidly, which resulted in the damage of some structures and downing of power lines in that area as well.”