The public is hereby reminded that the National Meteorological Service (NMS) within the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management, is the official government department with the mandate of providing weather forecasts as well as seasonal and sub-seasonal climate forecasts and alerts.

With the advancement of social media in recent years, there is a proliferation of platforms that share weather and climate forecasts and alerts informally. In most cases, the persons producing and sharing such information have limited or no training in meteorology or weather forecasting. The sharing of such information often results in unnecessary panic and alarm. Several media houses continue to post erroneous forecast on their media outlets which have resulted in undue alarm and in persons losing confidence in the official weather information thus becoming complacent when an actual threat exists.

The department, therefore, requests the media to cease this behaviour and contact the NMS for all official forecasts. While information on weather and climate is freely available on the internet and on television from various sources, the weather forecasters, meteorologists and climatologists at the NMS are experts in the field with several years of specialized technical training and experience in interpreting such information for the Belizean public.

The public is also urged to follow weather and climate information from the NMS. This includes weather and climate alerts and warnings produced by the NMS in conjunction with the National Emergency Management Organization and other official regional and municipal emergency management agencies. The NMS, along with its partners, will continue to work diligently to ensure that the public is informed well in advance of any real weather and climate-related hazards that could affect the country.