It is going to be a wet May, June, and July for Belize. That is the forecast coming out of the first Central American Climate Forum for 2006 which concluded today. For the past three days, meteorologists from 7 Central American countries met in Belize to forecast the region's weather for the next three months. So what's the forecast? Ramon Frutos told us what we can expect in Belize, while the forum's moderator Patricia Ramirez from Costa Rica gave us the regional outlook. We begin with Frutos.
Ramon Frutas, Belize Met Office
"For us here in Belize the next three months will be like this. We expect rainfall in May, June, July 2006 to be below normal in the northern one third of the country and above normal or normal in the central and southern two-thirds. So that means that areas like Corozal, Orange Walk, and Belize District could experience rainfall below normal during the first three months of the rainy season and the rest of the country will have in fact normal or above normal.
We expect a normal start of the rains at the end of May and the beginning of June. That's normally what happens in the normal year. Sometime when we have drought or dry spells, we could go right through to July or even September sometimes or sometimes it coincides with the August 'maaga' season. This year won't be like that, this year everything will be more or less normal."
Patricia Ramirez, SICA
"Most of the region tends to be under normal conditions and with the exception of part of the coast of Costa Rica and Panama which'll have more probability to have dry conditions, for the rest of the region it will be normal. This is an exercise that proves that Belize is completely integrated with Central America in which we work together as a region and it's something the integration system, for Central America sees as a one example of how the region can work together, the 7 countries."
And if you are wondering how this all ties into the hurricane season, well four hurricanes are expected in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico region and two are forecasted to become intense storms; that is, above category three. The next climate forum is scheduled for August in Costa Rica.
