Are you ready for Hurricane Richard? Well you'd better be! The weather system that sits 409 miles southeast of Belize city is only a tropical Storm tonight, but the weather experts when the storm hits Belize - and they say this one will hit - it will be at least a category one storm.
At 6:00 pm, hurricane hunter aircraft found the storm moving west at 5 miles an hour with maximum sustained winds of 45 miles an hour.
This evening Monica Bodden spoke to Meteorologist Frank Tench - who discussed the forecast based on the 3:00 pm update:…
Frank Tench, Meteorologist
"At 3 o' clock this afternoon Tropical Storm Richard was near latitude 16.2 degrees north and longitude 81.7 degrees west which is about 440 miles east by south of Belize City, 437 miles east by south of Dangriga and 432 miles east by south of San Pedro Ambergris Caye. The storm has strengthen a little bit since this morning, maximum sustain are near 45 miles per hour and its moving a little faster moving west at 5 miles per hour, still very slow but a bit faster that it has been moving the last few days. The current projection does have the storm likely to make a impact of some part of the coastline late Sunday night or early Sunday morning and intensification into a hurricane strength is quite like to occur during Sunday, most likely Sunday afternoon. Currently the storm has tropical storm force winds that extend 105 mile out from the center and if it intensifies further the radius of those tropical storm force winds will quite likely increase so it's a storm that we have to treat with a high degree of caution and my advice to the general Belizean public would be to be very vigilant and to monitor closely the reports being issued by radio and television this weekend."
At 6:00 pm - the latest forecast from The National Hurricane Center in Miami put the storm 409 miles southeast of Belize City moving west at 5 miles an hour with maximum winds of 45 miles an hour.
The Preliminary Phase and a Tropical Storm Watch was declared for the entire coast of Belize at 3:00 p.m. today.
NEMO is on 'HIGH ALERT' as it continues to monitor Tropical Storm Richard.
According to a NEMO advisory, "the public is being advised of further deteriorating weather conditions as Richard moves nearer to Belize.
People on the Cayes and along the coast who need to move are advised to do so early. "
It continues to say that:
"Public Officers are being asked to remain alert and be ready for deployment. All government vehicles must be fueled and parked at the Ministry of Works compound in their respective district."
We'll have more on Tropical Storm Richard in our weather report which is coming up a little later in the news.
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