Tropical Storm Harvey to pass over Belize on Saturday

The weather system that rose from the Eastern Caribbean now has a name and it’s Tropical Storm Harvey. Harvey’s strength is about forty-five miles per hour and is expected to strengthen tonight, before landfall on Saturday.  According to Dennis Gonguez, the Chief Met Officer, the National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) has met this morning and a Tropical Storm warning has been issued for the coast of Belize.

Dennis Gonguez, Chief Meteorological Officer

“We met this morning at ten o’clock and we decided that we’d issue a tropical storm warning for the entire coast of Belize and it translates into upgrading our warnings for the national emergency warning system to a red two phase for our national warning system. Last night the active tropical wave that was approaching the western Caribbean developed into a tropical depression number eight—that occurred around nine p.m. last night and since then, things have evolved, the system has become better organized and midday today it upgraded to Tropical Storm Harvey. Since then it has further intensified and now the wind speeds have increased to forty-five miles per hour. The forecast is for further strengthening. For landfall; landfall is expected around mid-afternoon tomorrow and it looks like we might have a sixty miles per hour tropical storm on our hands.”

Jose Sanchez

Dennis Gonguez

“Harvey; what’s the main area of concern?”

Dennis Gonguez

“Well the present track forecast puts it in the pretty much in the path of which Richard did last year. We are looking at somewhere midway between Belize City and Dangriga town. Historically, track forecast have been doing better than our intensity forecast—we have difficulty forecasting intensities, strengthening and weakening of sytems, but we have fairly good confidence in the track forecast.”

Jose Sanchez

“In terms of intensity and circumference, how would you classify Harvey?”

Dennis Gonguez

“It’s a small system and we start to see effects of it shortly after midnight towards dawn. We should start to see effects on the extreme outer waters, offshore. As I said landfall will be around three p.m. somewhere around there tomorrow afternoon.”

Jose Sanchez

“How long would you estimate we will be feeling the impact of it?”

Dennis Gonguez

“Well it’s moving at about twelve miles per hour, so I’m looking at by midday Sunday it will be well out of our area. We’re looking at about three to five inches of rainfall associated with this system so some places that could translate into localized flooding over some areas. So even some areas where it is mountainous in the southern part of the country we could see localized amounts of up to seven inches of rain. This system has the potential of further strengthening. It is moving over warm waters—conditions are favorable for some strengthening—so we again we looking at possibly a sixty to sixty-five miles per hour tropical storm and we need to be aware that it can be a menace to us.”