Belizeans wary as hurricane season opens
It happens every year around this time and the attention paid by the press and public is inversely proportional to the amount of time elapsed since our last natural disaster: In this case a mere two years. What I’m talking about is the onset of hurricane season. Patrick Jones has more.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
The radar observation is indicating a quiet tropical Atlantic, Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico at the start of the 2003 Hurricane Season. But if the predictions from a number of prominent sources are right, it won’t stay that way for very long. Forecaster at the Belize Weather Bureau, Frank Tench, says all indications are that this will be another busy year of meteorological activity in the tropics.
Frank Tench, Forecaster, Belize Weather Bureau
“I would hope that we don’t get any threats from hurricanes or tropical storms this year because any storm affecting the country provides a serious setback to the country’s development and economy. However, seasonal forecasts being produced by several sources have been suggesting an above average hurricane season for this year.”
Noted Colorado State University professor Dr. William Gray is predicting twelve named storms, eight of which are expected to become hurricanes and three intense ones. Tench says we should start to make preparations now, before the storm clouds begin to roll in.
Frank Tench
“This is a good time to get all…to review your hurricane plan if you had one for last season’s hurricane season and just go through that checklist of what you did right with last year’s hurricane season or a previous season where we were threatened with a hurricane, review that plan with a view to implementing it for this year. A good thing also is to start stock piling or having a list of what you are gong to stock pile in terms of supplies or necessary medical lists or items you may need to have in the event that you have to prepare, in the event of a tropical storm or hurricane.”
Although conditions in the eastern Caribbean are not currently favourable for tropical storm development, forecasters say Belizeans need to keep a close eye on the weather in our area.
Frank Tench
“Climatologically, in the early part of the season the most favoured part for the storms to form are in the western and south-western Caribbean and portions of the Gulf of Mexico. And then in the later part of the hurricane season, the storms tend to form off the West African coast and then promulgate west across the Atlantic to the Caribbean. Temperatures I have been looking at are around eighty-one to eighty-two degrees Fahrenheit, and you need a minimum temperature of about eighty-one degrees Fahrenheit. So already the Western Caribbean Sea is showing up to be warm enough for the generation of any system to survive, have enough energy for it to survive.”
And if a system does form, Tench says the Belize Weather Bureau with its upgraded telecommunications services and network of observation stations around the country, is prepared to go the extra mile to keep the nation informed. But while newer technology has been infused into the system, the mainstay of the department’s ability to tract hurricanes is its radar. This particular piece of equipment, in operation for over two decades, has survived a fire and in crunch time proven that new is not necessarily better.
Frank Tench
“In the case of when Iris struck the southern portion of the country, this was our main tool for actually tracking that storm as it approached and crossed the country. And the forecasters who were working at that time were actually able to correct the Hurricane Centre’s position based on what they were seeing on the radar. We could actually see the eye, make our own fix of where that eye was and we found that there was a difference in where the hurricane centre was positioning the eye and where we were seeing it. And we told them that and they corrected their forecast based on what we told them. So this is really your last line of defence when a storm or hurricane is threatening your country.”
Patrick Jones, for News 5.
Names of the tropical cyclones for 2003 are Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Fabian, Grace, Henri, Isabel, Juan, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicolas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor and Wanda. Viewers should note that storms, which have acquired special notoriety because of their unusual strength or destruction, may be permanently stricken from the list at the request of any member of the international hurricane committee. Thus, the infamous names of Mitch, Keith and Iris will never again be attached to hurricanes.
