Guyana expects thundershowers from Storm Gonzalo this weekend

Last Updated on Wednesday, 22 July 2020, 22:19 by Denis Chabrol

Current and forecasted of area where the center of TS Gonzalo will most likely be in the next 5 days (blue shaded area). The black line shows the most likely trajectory. Please note the size of the cone does not indicate the size of the system. Source https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

Guyana’s weather forecasters say Tropical Gonzalo, now 1,650 kilometres off the coast of Georgetown, and is expected to bring thundershowers on Friday and  Saturday.

The Hydrometeorological Service of the Ministry of Agriculture said based on current projections, including forward speed of six meters per second, the centre of this tropical storm is expected to be to the north of Guyana in the Atlantic Ocean as a hurricane between 8 PM on 24th July and 8 AM on 25th July.

“Unless this system changes its trajectory and begin to travel towards the south-west of its current position or it increases to in excess of four hundred Kilometres (400 Km), which are very improbable, TS Gonzalo is not expected to directly impact Guyana.

Nevertheless, this system may create favourable conditions over northern Guyana that may result in thundershowers. The extent of these thundershowers and the location (s) of impact are not exactly known at this time,” local weather forecasters said in a statement.

The Hydrometeorological Service said as soon as it can determine the impact of the storm on Guyana, details would be provided to Guyanese.  The Hydrometeorological Service said it would continue to monitor the situation and would provide updates as the need arises.

The United States National Hurricane Centre has informed the territories in the Northern Atlantic and Caribbean Basins of the formation of the seventh tropical system of the 2020 Northern Atlantic and Caribbean Hurricane season

This system was first reported as a Tropical Depression at  5 PM  hrs on July 21, 2020, but was subsequently upgraded to a Tropical Storm at about 09:00 hrs on July 22, 2020.

The National Hurricane Centre informs that at 11:00 hrs 22 July, 2020 the center of the Tropical Storm Gonzalo was located at 9.9 ºN 43.6 º W, which is about 1,650 kilometres to the east-north-east of Georgetown.

The system is moving towards the west at a speed of 6 meters per second.