Belize City flooded after morning rain

The old capital this morning looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. The heavy downpour caused streets to flood quickly and a few stores downtown closed business as water seeped into the buildings. Some vehicles stalled on the streets due to engine failures brought on by the deluge. The heavy rains also affected the northern districts and according to Chief Meteorologist, Dennis Gonguez, it was a severe weather system passing over the country. Gonguez says there may be more rains to come, but the worst is over.

Dennis Gonguez, Chef Meteorologist

dennis gonguez

“We had an area of intense thunderstorms that affected mainly the northern half of the country. It had good support in the upper levels of the atmosphere; like thirty-nine thousand feet all the way down to the surface. It had good support and so we just saw this bunch of thunderstorms burst—balloon up over the northern sections of the country.”

Delahnie Bain

“What we saw personally was only Belize City, where else was affected?”

Dennis Gonguez

“The northern districts also had some effects from these thunderstorms. These thunderstorms produced like two to three inches of rainfall over the northern sections of the country and very intense, heavy downpours.”

Delahnie Bain

“Have you heard of any flooding in other districts?”

Dennis Gonguez

“We’ve had no reports of flooding at this time.”

Delahnie Bain

“Is this something that we should worry about? Should we expect more rain?”

Dennis Gonguez

“The system that was causing the severe thunderstorms is presently moving away so we should see gradual improvements come this evening and tomorrow. Wednesday looks even better, however, nearing the weekend it seems that we will get another bout of showers approaching the weekend. But in the meantime we should see this activity decrease gradually during the rest of today and tomorrow. The rains were very intense and considering Belize City being low lying and it has some drainage issues and all that was compounded by this very intense rainfall that produced the localized flooding in Belize City.”

By this evening most of the streets were beginning to clear. More on the weather coming up later in the newscast.