National Meteorological Service of Belize improves services with new and revamped equipment, personnel training

Photo Credit: NMS Belize

By Rubén Morales Iglesias: The National Meteorological Service of Belize (NMS Belize) says it has undergone unprecedented growth and development over the past two years.

The NMS Belize, which is a department in the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management, said that the Government, under Plan Belize, has invested heavily in its equipment and personnel training.

“Investment by the Government in this critical Department has significantly enhanced its ability to accurately forecast and monitor extreme weather and climatic events and provide timely alerts to the Belizean public in order to safeguard life and property,” said the NMS Belize in a statement.

“This has become even more important with increasing weather events over the last few years.”

According to NMS, the first major investment made by the Government of Belize, with support from its regional partners, was the $215,000 repair of the Doppler Radar.

“The Doppler Radar is a vital tool used by the Department to track land-falling tropical cyclones as well as provide real-time updates to the Civil Aviation Department and the Airports in the safe landing of flights to Belize,” said the NMS

Then, the Government replaced an aging forecasting workstation at a cost of over $10,000 and invested $70,000 in a new backup generator.

“This workstation is crucial as it is used 24 hours daily by weather forecasters and meteorologists to view computer models and weather observations from different sources and perform different analyses aimed at producing up to the minute forecasts and alerts for the country,” said the NMS.

Additionally, according to the NMS, the Government of Belize, with assistance from its partners has assisted with the enhancement of its network of automatic weather stations which has increased from 49 to 87. The expanded network, which provides real-time information on weather conditions across the country, has now improved nationwide coverage. As a result, during the 2022 hurricane season, the NMS is now providing municipality-based forecasts and has re-introduced its nightly television weather broadcast.

The NMS also said that two meteorological officers have been sent to train at the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology in Barbados. One is training in weather forecasting and the other in applied meteorology.

The NMS Belize press release said the Government of Belize has committed continuous support for the National Meteorological Service so the department can to continue providing accurate and up-to-date meteorological and climate-based products and services through systematic and accurate data monitoring and collection, reliable data analyses and forecasts, and timely dissemination of user-friendly reports and forecasts.

“The Government wishes to express gratitude to its local and international partners in supporting the strengthening of the National Meteorological Services towards improved service delivery to the people of Belize,” said the NMS statement.