And early this morning, NEMO sent out the word on Tropical Storm Lisa with a press briefing at 7:00 am.
Some of the forecast details about the storm have changed since then - because the area of expected landfall has jogged slightly north - and there is now the possibility of a category two storm at landfall.
But, the strong cautions remain - as given out by the Chief Met Officer at 7:00 am:
Ronald Gordon, Chief Met Officer
"We're expecting 3 - 5 inches of rainfall with local higher values of about four to eight, sorry about 8 to 12 inches as Lisa moves across the country. Rainfall will begin affecting the country, in outer bands from as early as tonight into tomorrow morning increasing during the day with outer bands becoming more prevalent, heavy thunderstorms, squally conditions, hurricane-like conditions by late afternoon into the evening from these outer bands and then the system will make landfall over southern Belize near Dangriga, later in the night on Wednesday. A storm surge of about 3 to 5 feet is expected just north of the centre - and that's a very dangerous storm surge."
"Tropical storm force winds extend 105 miles from the centre, likely when the system becomes a hurricane, the hurricane force winds probably may extend probably about 25 miles from the centre."
"And of course rainfall will occur well away from the centre in rain bands, squally weather conditions, gusty winds, micro-burst that you saw in the case of Julia can occur far away from the center. So we discourage persons from focussing on that exact center of landfalls."
Col. Shelton DeFour (Ret'd.), National Disaster Coordinator
"And if needs be we'll open every shelter to make sure that the general pubic is safe, There will be some last minuters from the last experience we had who until they start to feel the winds and the rain start to affect them, oh we need to move now. Well we implore people, especially the smart people who will say things like you know what, you see this little cranky house we are in, this will not stand up, we have to get out of here. That's the mindset and that's the mentality."
