Ground broken for new weather radar
Prime Minister Said Musa took time off the campaign trail this afternoon to participate in the official ground breaking ceremony for a new radar and infrastructural upgrade to the National Meteorological Service. According to the Met Service, a state of the art Doppler Weather Radar will be installed in Ladyville by June and in operation a month later, just in time for the height of the hurricane season. But getting here has not been easy. The project has been in the pipeline for more than a decade as setbacks both in funding from the European Union and official inertia in Belmopan almost prevented the initiative from getting off the ground. The idea is to use the thirteen point two million Euros—approximately thirty-eight million Belize dollars—to construct four radar towers in Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad and Belize. Piggybacking on the project is a Government plan to refurbish the existing headquarters of the Met Service with an additional two thousand square feet of space. The area will be used for employee dormitories during hurricane emergencies, a library and administrative offices. And while Acting Chief Meteorologist Ramon Frutos is happy for the extra breathing room, he’s excited that this hurricane season, he won’t have to rely on satellite images on the internet to forecast weather conditions in Belize.
Ramon Frutos, Acting Chief Meteorologist
“What this system will provide is a better picture or series of images of where the severe weather conditions are as they are evolving and as they move inland towards the coast of Belize. So let’s say we have a major hurricane cat three, cat four, cat five hurricane moving towards Belize we’ll be able to pick this up from two hundred and forty kilometres or almost two hundred miles off shore Belize, pinpoint the eye position and to be able to follow or monitor that eye position as it tracks westward or north-westwards towards our coast. Another advantage that the radar system, the Doppler Radar system will have for the service is that it will be able to precisely give us the area that will be mostly impacted by an imminent hurricane or tropical storm or even tropical depression or as we refer to these sudden little storms, freak storms coming across the country or moving somewhere within the country of Belize. And we’ll also be able to indicate where severe down draft or wind conditions are that produce what we call those tornadic winds that’s been affecting our country especially during the dry season.”
Janelle Chanona
“And by linking up with other radars, we’ll be able to cover all bases…”
Ramon Frutos
“That’s right linking up with the other radars that are being proposed to be installed in the Western and Central Caribbean, we’ll be able to have a composite of radar images every fifteen minutes or every half hour of the whole region and be able to see or pinpoint where the tropical waves are and in what direction they are moving.”
The radar initiative is being implemented by the Caribbean Meteorological Organization on behalf of CARIFORUM. Fabro’s Industries Limited has been awarded the contracts to refurbish the existing radar tower and construct the two storey extension for the Meteorology Department.
