Belize Talks El Niño, Hurricanes, and Sargassum

Belize’s climate outlook is taking center stage at a critical time, as forecasters warn the country could be heading into a challenging season. From farmers to disaster planners, key players gathered today at the National Climate Outlook Forum to get ahead of what’s coming, an El Niño pattern expected to bring dry spells, erratic rainfall, and added pressure on already vulnerable sectors. With hurricane risks and the sargassum surge also in the mix, the focus is shifting from prediction to preparedness. Chief Meteorologist Ronald Gordon says the forum is more than just forecasts; it’s about getting everyone on the same page and ready to respond.

 

Ronald Gordon, Chief Meteorologist

“The main two things are, one, to present them with what the season looks like in terms of rainfall, in terms of the potential for tropical cyclones in terms of the heat, in terms of whether there’ll be drought and rainfall scarcity, and to let them know the forecast, but also to look at the potential impact that will have on their sectors. And certainly we also consult with them to get feedback on what we’re doing. So as you may know, we have been doing a lot of projects, a lot of initiatives to enhance, to improve the services we deliver. But we need to consult continuously with our stakeholders to determine whether we are providing them with what they need, what is relevant to them get their position on how we can improve those services. Of course we are facing what many persons have referred to as a super El Niño. We don’t use that term, of course, but we do expect a potentially moderate to strong El Niño to affect us. In fact, the El Niño has been declared, so we have to inform our stakeholders of the consequences of that El Niño, which could mean that we’ll have extended dry spells, but certainly it doesn’t mean that we won’t have excessive rainfall in very short period as we saw last week. And of course we look at hurricane season. The seasonal prediction, as we have been saying, is calling for less than normal in terms of the total activity. But again, we always remind our stakeholders that all it takes is one storm for it to be active. So certainly those are some of the things that we’re looking at.”

 

Officials warn Belize is heading into a heavy 2026 sargassum season, with weekly alerts already flagging coastal impacts and unusually warm Atlantic waters expected to keep the influx going well past August.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

Watch the full newscast here: