Continuing Drought Affects Northern Belize

The extended period of dry weather that has been affecting central and northern Belize persists and threatens to adversely affect the agriculture industry in the Corozal and Orange Walk districts.  According to climatologist, Ronald Gordon, of the National Meteorological Service, drought warnings have been issued for the past few months and notwithstanding a change in weather patterns in October, the severe event is taking its toll in certain parts of the country.

Ronald Gordon, Climatologist, National Met Service

Ronald Gordon

“We have been receiving below normal rainfall, especially over northern and central areas of the country, I would say practically much for the entire year.  The situation became even worse during the summer months where some stations were some stations were reporting up to fifty percent below normal rainfall and we at the National Met Service has been issuing drought warnings for the north for several months now and that has been covering also some parts of northern Belize and Cayo districts as well. The drought that we’ve been experiencing was being caused by what we call an El Nino phenomenon and El Nino typically means that you have warmer ocean temperatures in the pacific side of the ocean and in that case that tends to attract all the storminess over there and in our area there is less storminess.  What we have been seeing is that this El Nino that we have been experiencing is gradually diminishing so we are heading towards what we call a neutral phase and that will typically mean that you will look at rainfall becoming more normal as the moist heads on.  However, I have been cautioning that one of the problems we have with a normal phase is that the forecast becomes more unpredictable.  We are better able to predict when you have an El Nino.  We can say that there will be less rainfall and if you have La Nina which is cooler temperatures in the Pacific, you will have more rainfall.”