New Tech Boosts Belize’s Weather Monitoring Thanks to International Donation

The National Meteorological Service of Belize has received a donation of new computers, monitors, and battery backups to enhance early warning capacity. In an interview yesterday, Chief Meteorological Officer Ronald Gordon told the media the importance of the 60-thousand-dollar donation, which is a part of a larger 200-thousand-dollar donation from the Korean International Cooperation Agency, the United Nations Development Program, and the World Food Program. He explained how the use of the new equipment will help to monitor weather patterns.

Ronald Gordon, Chief Meteorologist, National Met Service: “There are two components to the project. In my opinion, that is geared toward this department. One is to enhance our early warning capacity, providing information that people can use, actionable information on any approaching hazard, any hurricane, severe weather, drought, whatever the case may be. But there’s also the components of collecting climate data, and storing that data, and providing that data because on the long term you need to have a good climate record for us to be able to do proper planning, to be able to inform developers about how to plan what to build, where to build and so forth, to avoid the long-term impact of climate change and to become more climate resilient.”

Chief Ronald Gordon mentioned the National Meteorological Service of Belize had computers before, but they need to be replaced.