As you heard in the weather report earlier, today was another scorcher. The high temperature inland was a punishing 104 degrees and 95 degrees on the coast. But you didn't need the weather report to tell you it was hot because unless you're encamped in an air-conditioned home or office, you've felt it. Today we found out how long the heat wave will last and how you can stay cool.
Keith Swift Reporting,
Forecaster Ann Gordon says the heat wave stifling the country is caused by what meteorologists call a thermal or heat low.
Ann Gordon, Forecaster - Belize Met Service
"This is caused by intense day time heating. Normally with this type of system the weather is normally dry, showers are normally just isolated because the dew point is low and the relative humidity is low."
Confused? Well Forecaster Gordon says there is really only one thing you need to know.
Ann Gordon,
"It will be hot."
Keith Swift,
95 degrees in the city, is that unusually high?
Ann Gordon,
"Not in April. I remember 2005, Belmopan had temperatures in March of about 104 degrees."
It may not be record highs but Dr. Greg Arana says it is hot enough.
Dr. Greg Arana,
"You have to think cool, that's very important."
And in thinking cool - Dr. Arana says you have to stay cool.
Dr. Greg Arana,
"You need to find a cool environment where it be a cool river if you can, if you have the benefit of AC like you have in my office, not many people have that, but if you can be in an AC environment, taking cool showers or baths, doing these things to help maintain the temperature. The things you need to
look out for in heat exhaustion and heating fainting and so on is just a weariness, a tiredness. It is worse if you are obese. It is worse if you have something like high blood pressure and taking certain medication for pressure that can make the heat exhaustion worse, make the loss of fluids from the body worse and losing salts and fluids from the body."
The old adage in beating the heat is of course that you have to drink lots of cold liquids. Well Dr. Arana says liquids are good but not all cold ones.
Dr. Greg Arana,
"A lot of people would want to take a cold beer, I am not leaving myself out of that. But alcohol combined with the loss of fluids from sweating and so on, too much of the alcohol doesn't do well for you because it is a diuretic and so you pass out more and more fluid and it impairs the judgment even worse. So take it easy on the cold beers and drink cold water."
Butt in these days of temperatures above one hundred degrees - water - no matter how much of it you drink - may still not be enough.
Dr. Greg Arana,
"The best replacement, because if you notice blood is salty and sweat is salty, is replacing both the water and the salt. The re-hydration salts, we mentioned earlier the Gatorades and so on, they combine the replacement of fluids with the replacement of salts. They are both very important. Just water itself is adequate for a mild level but preferable if you have a severe dehydration that is affecting you, you are dried out and you get confused with headache and fatigue and so on, its best to combine the rehydration salts, pedialyte for the kids or even for adults."
Keith Swift,
What about ideals?
Dr. Greg Arana,
"Well the typical rehydration salts have in a mixture of things that help the body to reabsorb water and what we call electrolytes and salts and sugar is a part of it. The ideal that is cold, like I said it helps ice going down - it helps to decrease the internal body temperature and helps you feel cooler."
And when is it going to get cooler? Forecaster Ann Gordon says there is some good news in the near future.
Ann Gordon,
"This heat will last at least until Saturday. Sunday we would get some relief from this heat because we have a cold front that will likely cross us on Sunday and that will cause our winds to back up to the west and northwest and that will bring some cooler temperatures in our area."
But expect the reprieve to be temporary. Forecaster Gordon says this is global warming at its best.........or at its worst - depending on how hot it is where you live.
Ann Gordon,
"Scientists have shown that the global temperature is indeed getting warming. The warming is not uniform however it will take the global temperature on average, we have about.7 degrees Celsius warming during the past one hundred years."
While temperatures will dip slightly this weekend, the passage of the cold front is expected to produce thunderstorms inland. And if you think April is hot, forecasters warn that May is the hottest month of the year so there's more scorchers in store.
