Region?s weather forecasters gear up for hurricane season

Don’t look now but from the glorious days of Easter it’s only a scant six weeks until (whispers) Hurricane season. And while many of us may be fretting, the region’s professional weather forecasters are planning.

Kendra Griffith, Reporting
Since the year 2000, the Central American meteorologists and hydrologists meet every four months in a different country to analyse weather patterns and make predictions for the upcoming months.

Ramon Frutos, Deputy Chief Meteorologist, Belize
?The weather and climate does not know any border, so what happen is that whatever happens in the Pacific Coast, affects the Caribbean coast of central America, whatever is happening in El Salvador or Honduras eventually affects Belize or the Yucatan.?

While farmers are the most likely to benefit from the rainfall and temperature predictions, according to Belize?s Deputy Chief Meteorologist, Ramon Frutos, the information is useful in other areas, such as hydroelectricity.

Ramon Frutos
?They know already or they have an idea of how the rainfall pattern will be during the next three months, then they know how to manage and regulate their water in the reservoir and capitalise on how much electricity they would produce, and in that way optimise on the amount of money they will generate from the production of electricity, and it also helps them to regulate the use of electricity, because if we don?t expect much rainfall in the following three months then these managers they have to regulate the output to meet the demands.?

Belize?s Met Office has determined that in the next coming months rainfall in the northern portion of the country is expected to be normal or below normal, while rest of the Belize could see above normal precipitation.

Ramon Frutos
?So it seems as though we?re entering into a rainy season that will be normal. It will begin normally, and we?ll see some rains in June, July and August and that will produce some early floods, probably in central and southern Belize.?

And for those wondering about the accuracy of the report, Frutos admits that while predicting the weather is not an exact science, working together as a region has considerably increased the odds of getting it right.

Ramon Frutos
?We started off probably with a forty or even a thirty percent accuracy, but now we have improved it at least to a fifty or sixty percent. That we can tell more or less what type of rainfall activity will affect for example: the southern part of Central American, and how it will be along the Caribbean coast of Central America or how it will be along the Pacific Coast of Central America.?

With the hurricane season fast approaching, experts are already saying that 2006 will once again be active. According to Frutos, highly regarded scientists Dr. William Grey has predicted seventeen named storms for the Atlantic Basin. Nine of those will become hurricanes, while five of these hurricanes will be intense storms of category three or greater. But if that is an above average year, what is a normal one?

Ramon Frutos
?Normally in the Atlantic Basin, which includes the tropical Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico, there are ten named storms that occur on the average and out of those ten, half, that is five or six of them become hurricanes. Out of those six, three become strong or intense hurricanes of category three strength or stronger.?

Four of the 2006 storms are expected in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico … and Belize as usual can be threatened. Frutos says that while they look to the history books to predict a landfall, the best course of action is to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

Ramon Frutos
?We look at some analogous years of the past historical records and one of the analogous year is 2003 and another one is 1961, another one is 1975. 1975 we had a very dry condition in Belize that was drought. The rains did not start until September, but as we recall in 1961, we also had something like a drought at the beginning, but we had a storm in 1961 in August, I think it was Anna. But then in October of 1961, we had hurricane Hattie, which was devastating. So if 1961 is one of the analogous year, then we have to be on the alert and we have to prepare, always be prepared for any eventuality.?

Kendra Griffith reporting for News Five.

The climate outlook will be available on the met service’s website at www.hydromet.gov.bz.