12th National Climate Outlook Forum Discusses Hurricane Season Projections

Several stakeholders from various sectors gathered in Belize City for the twelveth National Climate Outlook Forum. The annual event, organized by the National Meteorological Service of Belize, sought to provide partners in the climate-sensitive sectors with an outlook on the country’s hurricane season. The presentations centered on rainfall, drought, heat, and other shifts in weather patterns. Chief Meteorologist Ronald Gordon underscored how the data is disseminated and used to increase the country’s resiliency to climate change.

Ronald Gordon, Chief Meteorologist: “What we are seeing is that gradually our dry season is becoming more intense as we saw recently with the wildfires and the extreme dry temperatures that we had. We also noticed that sometimes at the start of the rainy season we get rains but then eventually we get an extended what we typically used to call the maaga season. That’s between around July to August sometimes we get an intense dry spell as well. So we notice that there are changes  occurring and of course we know that our temperatures are increasing. As we look at our data, every year we monitor our temperatures, they are going up. So it is quite clear that we are in the era of climate change and temperatures are increasing. First of all, let me say that one of the presentations that we did this morning was in terms of the hurricane season. So hurricane season varies. It’s not only due to climate change, but we have something called the El Nino Southern Oscillation. I’m not going to explain it here, but it was explained in the presentation that sometimes you have an active hurricane season, sometimes you have an inactive hurricane season. The prediction for this particular season, as most of your viewers already know, is for it to be an active season. And what measures people can take, well that’s exactly what we’re going to do later today. So we’ll be hosting what we call a multi-hazard tournament, so that we have our stakeholders plan, and while they’re planning, they’ll be playing a game and building resilience at the same time to basically mitigate whatever measures or whatever hazards will be affecting them this particular season.”

The forum followed the Ministry of Disaster Risk Management’s first-ever Disaster Preparedness Forum. CEO of the Ministry Kennedy Carillo says the events seek to advance climate resilience and educate the public on the importance of disaster preparedness.

Kennedy Carrillo, CEO, Ministry of Blue Economy: “NEMO is a system, it’s a national system that includes governmental, non-governmental, private sector, community, everybody. Even you at your home, you are part of NEMO. And so the message that we are bringing today and yesterday for our Hurricane Preparedness Forum, the first ever, is to bring together all the partners to see how prepared we are and areas that we need to improve. So for us it’s very important that we’re having the second part of our forum today which looks now at climate outlook. It’s an opportunity for us to learn and also to get accurate information because unfortunately whenever the hurricane season comes we have many wannabe meteorologists on social media and this can create unnecessary panic and chaos when a system is already in place with our national met service that is providing the information to NEMO which is the national authority for the warnings and the alerts. So it’s very important for us to engage the general public and also to remind them that we should not just speak about hurricanes during June to November. We have to be prepared all year long. It’s only been three months since the Met Service came under the responsibility of our ministry, Blue Economy, and I can tell you that the Met Service engages a group of technical experts who on a regular basis are being trained, they’re identifying areas, new areas to be trained, they’re also improving in terms of their technology and so I think that our country can really feel proud that we have one of the best met service in the region, so much so that countries in the Caribbean and even in the US depend on us for information. And I think this is what we’re getting from these forums, the opportunity to recognize where there are areas for improvement.”

NEMO’s National Emergency Coordinator Captain Daniel Mendez spoke on using data-driven strategies to improve the country’s ability to prepare for natural disasters and adapt to changing weather patterns.

Daniel Mendez, National Emergency Coordinator, NEMO: “We are doing our best to strengthen our systems. We have been doing a lot of revision of our plans. We know that we have to strengthen our plans and we also have to be better able of understanding the increased hazards, the increased capacity of these hazards to cause damage. So we are in the middle of a review of all our plans and strengthening those not only within NEMO but also within all our partner committees, also with the different villages and municipalities. What I do know is that the Belizean public is very aware of these hazards and I know that they’re listening to NEMO, they’re listening to the Met Service and I encourage them to continue listening to us because we are preparing and providing as much accurate information as possible as we can provide. By now everyone should have had a plan already. You should know where to go, what you’re going to do if there’s ever a storm developing in our area. So what we’re doing with the Met Service today is really to understand the outlook for this season for us at NEMO. We need that for planning purposes so we can know where to go, what to do, and how we’re better guided in our work.”

The forum was held at the Biltmore Plaza.