And this morning, the MET Service along with NEMO had their final press conference as it relates to Hurricane Beryl. Chief Meteorologist Ronald Gordon explained that it made landfall early this morning in Mexico, and continued inland. And as you heard, Belize, and particularly Corozal, was spared from even the rains. Gordon said it could have gone either way, and we were fortunate it shifted even further away just before landfall.
Ronald Gordon, Chief Meteorologist
"Hurricane Beryl made landfall this morning just after 4am as a category 2 hurricane with winds of a 110 miles per hour, about 5 miles northeast of Tulum, Mexico and Yucatan Peninsula. The hurricane is now inland and moving west northwest across the Yucatan Peninsula. Fortunately for us here in Belize, we had minimal impacts from the hurricane, the last I looked, the highest wind gust was 35 miles per hour recorded up in the north in Ranchito in the Corozal District. So we were spared the tropical storm force winds from the system and in terms of rainfall, we're also very grateful that God has blessed us once again in terms of rainfall total in a 24 accumulation, we had about 1 to 2 inches and that was not directly in the north, actually the north got about half inch of rainfall. The most rainfall recorded was actually down south in Punta Gorda, we got almost 2 inches of rainfall. So certainly, the impact from this system was very minimal which was one of the probabilities that we indicated, minimal to moderate potential impacts. Once thing that I want to mention in terms of the track, the forecasted track for the hurricane was north of what was the most probable path by about 70 miles or less and that certainly was very helpful for us. We are certain that if the hurricane had made landfall near Punta Allen then certainly tropical storm forces would extended 70 miles further south and may have affected the extreme north that we had indicated. But in this particular case, there was a shift more to the north at the very end that certainly helped in ensuring that we were okay."
"We, in terms of what we are now, as of 6am, after advising NEMO and getting approval from the Honorable Prime Minister, I informed National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida that Belize will be discontinuing the tropical storm watch for the coast of the country given that the system had made landfall so certainly that is no longer there."
"The threat has passed and we do not expect tropical storm conditions to affect the country from this system anymore."
