This morning, after hours of non-stop rain, many Belizeans in central and northern areas woke up to flood waters at their doorsteps. Heavy thunderstorms dumped massive rainfall on large parts of the country, causing sudden flooding.

Some of those flood waters caused substantial damage to a portion of the Philip Goldson Highway, which we'll tell you about.

We start first on our coverage of the storm with comments from the Chief Meteorologist, Ronald Gordon. He held a press briefing via zoom, where he explained that a tropical wave passing over the country was the primary cause of the deluge:

Ronald Gordon - Chief Meteorologist, National Met Service
"We were monitoring a tropical wave that approached the country and crossed overnight; I would say a strong tropical wave. The system began affecting Belize as of yesterday morning, with showers and thunderstorms affecting mainly southern parts of the country at first and then spreading to other parts of the country yesterday afternoon, which was August 17th. Showers and thunderstorms increased overnight; numerous showers and thunderstorms actually affected Central and Coastal areas in the beginning and then moved up towards the north of the country this morning. Currently, we still have some lingering showers and areas of light rain over the extreme north of the country, while most other parts of the country have little rainfall at the moment, except for - I would say - cloudy to overcast skies remaining over other parts. For the most part, the shower activity has moved further north and west as the tropical wave moves away. The system, as I said, was quite strong and has had upper-level support - as we call it to produce intense thunderstorms. Not to get too technical, but we refer to that type of system as a mesoscale convective system, where thunderstorms basically re-develop over and over again over the same area producing torrential rainfall and intense lightning activity. The records from our weather stations indicate we had upwards of 5 inches of rainfall over the Belize City/Ladyville area. From the latest observations I've seen, I actually saw up to 7 inches of rainfall affecting us here at the airport, and that's between midnight and about midday today, which is a 12-hour timespan. To put it in perspective, we recorded at the airport - and this is perhaps one of the most reliable stations that we have. We recorded about 185 millimeters of rainfall over the past 12 hours, and that is extremely high. The rainfall average for this station is around 190 millimeters for the month of August. So again, similar to a situation we saw last month, their station in the north recorded almost the total rainfall in a month in a very short period; again, we have that situation occurring with this recent tropical wave. I guess most people saw it on social media. There was some flooding across the country, and there was some damage to our infrastructure, especially when it comes to our roads and culverts in some areas."

Dams Stable During Heavy Rains

With all the flooding - some in the west were concerned about a rush of water spilling out of the dams on the Macal river. Well, Fortis Belize, the company formerly known as BECOL which operates the Mollejon, Vaca and Chalillo dams sent out a release today to ease the publics concerns. It says operations at the dams remain normal, and, quote, "despite the recent extreme amount of rainfall and a rise in reservoir levels, there have been no spills so far this year."

The release adds however that a "spill event" caused by extreme weather conditions is therefore considered a routine part of operations, during the rainy season and is managed in a controlled manner.

Water levels are constantly monitored and communicated to NEMO.

Channel 7

Strong Tropical Wave Causes Multiple Thunderstorms across Belize

The system that crossed Belize overnight was a strong tropical wave that dumped more rainfall in some parts of the country in a twelve-hour period than it normally does in an entire month. The system has now moved west of Belize, and weather conditions are expected to improve. Chief Meteorologist, Ronald Gordon explained the system that affected us between Tuesday and today.

Ronald Gordon, Chief Meteorologist

"We refer to that type of system as a meso-scale convective system where thunder storms basically redevelop over and over again over the same area, producing torrential rainfall and intense lightening activity. The records from our weather stations indicate that we had upwards of five inches of rainfall over the Belize City-Ladyville area, from the latest observations I've seen. I actually saw up to seven inches of rainfall affecting us here at the airport and that's between midnight and about midday today. That is extremely high. The rainfall average for this station is around one hundred and ninety milliliters for the month of August. So again, similar to a situation we saw last month, where a station in the north recorded almost the total rainfall for a month in a very short period, again we have this situation occurring with this recent tropical wave. It's very interesting, I would say, that we have been seeing these exceptionally high amount of rainfall occurring in these very short periods of time. Of course that would lead to the type of flooding that you see. Typically, you'd expect rainfall to be more uniform and distributed across the month, but we're seeing in recent trends that we get these torrential downpours occurring over a very short period of time. It's definitely not the first one we have seen in August. I have recalled some Augusts from memory, where we had this type of activity before and you have these relentless thunder storms that persist over an area and produce these types of torrential rainfall. It's not the first time and August is the month of the year, from a climatological perspective, where we have the most thunderstorms and lightning activity over Belize."

Gordon advised people to stay alert since the hurricane season usually gets more active later in the season.

Channel 5