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Will tonight be another night of record breaking heat? That's what happened yesterday as a rare October heat wave blanketed the country.
Now normally, the months of October to January would often call for sweater season, with the occasional cold front here and there, and chilly mornings.
However mid way into October we've been bombarded with heat alerts by the National Met service which is registering "record breaking temperatures for October" over the past few days. Chief Met officer Ronald Gordon told us why via zoom today
Ronald Gordon, Chief Meteorologist
"Starting off with the weather conditions we are experiencing extremely hot conditions and this is due mostly to a southerly wind that we have to the surface and the low levels going to a low pressure system so the circulation around that low is causing the winds to come up from the south and in doing so those winds need to cross the mountainous regions in Central America Honduras and once they descend on the Leeward side of the mountains they will be coming down and warming up due to what we call Adiabatic compression so it's like when you're pumping your bicycle wheel and you feel the pump getting warm that's compression and warming so that's what we are experiencing due to the southerly winds coupled with that we have a high pressure system in the mid to upper levels of the atmosphere which is helping to keep the air suppressed keeping it downward as well and of course warming up. We have seen that trend for about the last two to three days. Today is actually the peak of the heat wave that we are currently experiencing but I don't have complete data as yet so I'm going to reference the data from yesterday."
He notes that temperatures in Belize City yesterday broke 2009 records by 3 degrees with temperatures up to 93 degrees Fahrenheit. And in the Cayo district, at Central Farm, 2003 records were broken by 14 degrees with temperatures of 104 being recorded. That's a steep record breaker and he discussed this phenomenon with us:
Ronald Gordon, Chief Meteorologist
"Today is the peak so if you imagine a wave we are at the crest and we are going to be going down on the other side now. That does not mean that tomorrow is going to be cool, it's still going to be relatively hot. We still expect that there is going to be a heat alert out but the trend is for it to be cooling down. And in terms of cold front I may not have mentioned but the low pressure system in the gulf is associated with a cold front. That cold front will actually move north of us and not affect us but another front will descend into the gulf weekend and that front based on the current model forecast appears that it will pass us sometime on Monday bringing in some rains, some northerly winds and of course cooler air."
Gordon strongly encourages the public to stay hydrated and keep cool until the heat wave passes.
For its part, BEL says that due to the heat, during the past few days power demand has exceeded expectations, recording above 12% higher than was projected for the period of October. Quote, "This is largely due to an unprecedented heat wave rolling over the country over the next few days."
