Based on the images and videos we have received from the southern parts of the country, along the Coastal Highway and even in smaller communities, Chief Hydrologist Tennille Hendy is urging the public to exercise extreme caution when travelling through these flooded areas, for those who can make it through on the highways. She shared with us what their data on flooding has looked like so far.
Tennille Hendy - Chief Hydrologist
"We have some areas where there is visible reports or pictures, videos being shared, some collected by our office as it relates to flooding. I have to highlight that at the mile 17 post on the Coastal Highway that is already impassable so it is not advisable that you use the Coastal Road at this time. In the Hummingbird there have been some cases of flooding but we have not been able to document those for ourselves as yet, but we also would say exercise extreme caution in those areas. In our flood forecast from yesterday we showed the 12, 24 and 36 hour outlook in terms of flash flooding and so it is aligning quite well with the areas that we had alerted yesterday to monitor your environment. Looking at the new dates that we have, we see that area advancing to most of the country, and aligning as well with Chief Met in terms of the precipitation moving into the north. We are also seeing very high potential for flooding in the north as well mainly linked to what we call or often refer to as localized flooding, urban flooding associated with excessive rainfall so quite literally the entire country has to be on call from what we are seeing right now especially for those in the central areas as mentioned before and on the south. Recall that we have these hills when the rainfall hits those features within the environment. they tend to travel rather quickly down the slope and into the lower lying areas so if you are off the eastern slopes of the Maya Mountains into the south you definitely need to be on the look out when there is an excessive rainfall, notice or advisory for your area. As well we need to consider double impacts or double contributors especially for those who are on the western side of the country near to riverine systems, we have our neighbors, Guatemala and Mexico being affected by the event that is in their area so we also need to be on the lookout for riverine flooding, and you have the combination of excessive rainfall which is flooding caused by rain events."
