WEATHER PATTERNS AND RAINY SEASONS OF BELIZE

RAINY SEASONS AND WEATHER PATTERNS OF BELIZE

By Ray Auxillou

Belize has two rainy seasons, which are September and October and also December and January. Belize also has a dry season, our summer which is April and May. May, being the hottest month of the year.

Right now we are getting a lot of October rain. The two rainiest months are October and January.

Planting usually is encouraged for natural tropical crops, done in the two rainy seasons. We do get lots of isolated showers most of the year and we could describe the weather as being ETERNAL SPRING. Though from April through August, the weather is the warmest time, with April and May being the hottest DRY SEASON.

For vegetables, the temperate zone seeds must be planted between September and February. The summer months require more summer, or tropical type vegetable seed varieties. The difference is mostly to do with the biological genetic triggering mechanism. Summer vegetable seeds have a very minute short space between their requirements for day temperatures and night temperatures. Otherwise vegetables that are for the wrong season, which means the period when there is a marked increase between day and night temperature for the winter crops, will spiral out of control, if planted and grown during the summer season. There is another problem in that seeds from Northern latitudes have a different biological day time exposure. Usually around 18 hours, whereas in the tropics, the day time exposure is timed biologically to about 12 hours.

The weather during the FALL rainy season is based both on the Hurricane season, when passing hurricanes can drop lots of rain, or local convection. Local convection is caused by the tilt of the EARTH as it wobbles and the tropic zone is readjusting, finding a new latitude, either side of the equator. The place of greatest centrifugal force, while the planet spins. The shifting of the Gulf Stream, a warm river of water in the Atlantic Ocean passing through the Caribbean Sea, moves it’s course early in the Spring/ Summer season toward Belize and retreats Eastward during the FALL season. Water temperature differences, combined with the centrifugal force of the spinning planet, create pathways through the atmosphere for the transfer of heat and cold between the Artic and tropical equator.

Natural plants have evolved to fit their needs to the rainy seasons primarily and somewhat along the difference between night and day time temperatures. Some tend to blend between seasons and can ripen and bear outside the parameters of the major rains. There is little difference between the day and night temperatures from March through August. The temperature stays fairly constant and does not shift enough at night, to turn off the biological growing switch. They require different imported summer seed varieties for farmers to work. Plants that have other means of turning off the day and night growing systems, or a very hair trigger switch to distinguish when they should metabolize the sugars they produce through photosynthesis.

The controlling factors for planting crops are the supply of water. Either you gear to the natural rainy seasons and grow two crops a year, or you regulate your water supply mechanically and plant all year around. The next determining factor will be the seed variety chosen by the biological mechanism dependent on the temperature range of tolerance, between the day and night temperatures. There has to be a biological temperature thermostat switch inside the seed, to tell the plant when to stop feeding for 12 hours. Most winter varieties of seeds require a marked difference between day and night temperatures. Otherwise the biological triggering mechanism will turn them on, and they spiral into non-stop growing, 24 hours a day.

The FALL rainy season of September and October are usually local convection. As the Gulf Stream retreats Eastward from the coast of Belize and the Great Barrier Reef , the water temperature changes slightly. Temperature differences between the sea and the land, create a rainy season based on local convection patterns. Huricanes coming in from the Atlantic and Africa also bring rain from along the equatorial belt of the Atlantic ocean . The rainy season found for December and January is different. The planet Earth has tilted to maximum tilt in the wobble as it spins and the transfer of cold temperatures of the artic to the tropical zones starts to occur. In Belize , we get what are called Northern Fronts, coming from Alaska and the Baring Sea . These fronts move south as the FALL/WINTER season progress and the earth stops the wobble, while spinning and reverses, to tilt the other way. Northern Fronts usually stall out around Nicaragua . They have enough force to go as far as the Southern USA in August and September, but by October these cold fronts are reaching into Central Mexico and even Belize . By late December and all through January, these cold fronts move down to Nicaragua . They are accompanied by a wide belt of rain, roughly 70 miles wide, which can take a few hours to pass over Belize and followed by dry clear and very cold weather. Temperatures in Belize can drop to the mid 60 degrees farenheight during this month and sweaters and jackets come out for the population. Northers as they are locally called, last anywhere from three days to ten days at a time. Heat transfer for the planet occurs in the late summer/FALL months in our Northern hemisphere from the Caribbean to the Artic, in the form of hurricanes. This heat transfer reverses in December/January from the Arctic Ocean to the equatorial Caribbean belt in the tropics, by cold Northern Frontal weather waves.

Maximum temperature daytime differences in Belize occur in January, the coldest month, and May the hottest temperatures. Usually the lowest temperature is around 64 degrees farenheight and the highest temperatures can occur in May over a hundred, with many days of ninety degrees. These May high temperatures play havoc with the farmer growing vegetables. They also effect seed germination, as seeds germinate around sixty eight degrees farenheight and performance falls off, as you go outside the needed temperature range. Most seeds will not germinate over 80 degrees farenheight.