Mexico City.- While during the week it was projected that ‘Beryl’ would hit Mexican territory with an intensity of 1 or 2, the National Water Commission (Conagua) updated this Wednesday that the hurricane could impact between Thursday or Friday in Quintana Roo with category 2 or even 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
In a press conference, federal government meteorological authorities predicted that ‘Beryl’, currently over Jamaica, more than a thousand kilometers from Quintana Roo, will make landfall between Thursday night and Friday morning between the towns of Chac-Mool and Pajaritos, in the municipality of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, in the central region of the state.
The cyclone is expected to move with wind gusts of 154 to 177 kilometers per hour, and after hitting Quintana Roo, it will cross the Yucatan Peninsula in a matter of hours before entering the Gulf of Mexico on Friday night as a tropical storm.
The passage of the atmospheric phenomenon is now causing an alert in 104 sites identified as susceptible to flooding in Quintana Roo and Yucatán.
Jesús Montes, manager of surface waters at Conagua, explained that 94 sites are located in Quintana Roo, where the hurricane will impact, and 10 more in Yucatán.
“We have worked together with Cenapred to identify sites susceptible to flooding, which means that these are the sites where potential flooding would occur,” he explained.
“It doesn’t mean that they are the only ones, however, they could be the most susceptible to flooding. (They are places) where the situation could become complicated, but we will be very attentive.”
Montes said that, according to the mapping of sites susceptible to flooding, the municipalities with the highest risk of flooding in Quintana Roo are Bacalar, Lázaro Cárdenas, Othón P. Blanco and Puerto Morelos.
From Yucatan, they are mainly the municipalities of Chapab, Motul, Opichén, Oxkutzcab, Progreso and Tekax.
“They are not the only ones who could be affected in a given case, but they are the ones who mainly have some problem with flooding, we ask to be very attentive,” he said.
Later, during the weekend (Saturday and Sunday), it will intensify in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico to a Category 1 hurricane, possibly impacting Tamaulipas between Sunday night or early Monday morning.
Specifically, it was projected that the eye of ‘Beryl’ could have its impact on the north-central coast of Tamaulipas, between the municipalities of Soto la Marina and Matamoros.
In addition to affecting the southeast and northeast regions of the country, the cloud bands of ‘Beryl’ could also cause very heavy and intense rainfall in entities such as Oaxaca, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Hidalgo and Puebla.
In the case of Mexico City, any rain that may occur will be associated with a low pressure system with cyclonic potential that is being monitored off the coast of Michoacán.
Alert for dams in NL
In a video conference, Montes also warned about the high water level of the dams in the State of Nuevo León, due to the rainfall in the last few days in that State.
“We are keeping a special watch on rivers and dams located in areas of heavy rain. In the case of dams in Nuevo Leon, we are keeping a very specific watch because in recent days we have had significant inflows, mainly due to cyclone Alberto,” he said.
Montes said that the La Boca dam is 97 percent full, El Cuchillo is 88 percent full, and Cerro Prieto is 81 percent full.
“All these runoffs have represented significant increases and are good news for the supply of the metropolitan area of Monterrey,” he added.
“We will be very attentive in case any additional extraction is carried out in addition to what is currently being carried out.”
In Tamaulipas, there is also special surveillance of the so-called lagoon system, as it is at 116 percent due to very significant runoff in recent days.
“We will be very attentive, because if there is more runoff, we would have some impacts, mainly in the metropolitan area of Altamira, Tampico and Ciudad Madero,” he added.
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