The 2010 Hurricane Season for the Tropical Atlantic ends today. With the amount of named storms, this year's hurricane season is the third highest on record.  In mid-October Hurricane Richard tore through central Belize leaving millions of dollars in destruction in its wake. Love News spoke by telephone with the Chief Meteorologist Dennis Gonguez and asked him to summarize this year's Hurricane season.

Dennis Gonguez; Chief Meteorologist

"I would sum it up in two words; very active. This year we saw the development of about nineteen named systems of which twelve of which became hurricane and five of those were major hurricanes. That means they achieved category three, four or five status. If we compare that with the long term average, the long term average is for ten named storms, six to become hurricanes and two of those to become major hurricanes so this has been a very active season particularly in the North West Caribbean, in our neck of the woods."

Hurricane Richard devastated citrus orchards in the south and destroyed homes and neighborhoods in the Belize district and in particular south side Belize City. Gonguez says there are important lessons to be learned from this experience.

Dennis Gonguez

"The major lesson is that we are not immune to them and we can see what destruction at least a category one can do so we can now stretch our imaginations to think what a category two, three or four or what level of destruction could be expected from a higher category system."

Patrick Jones, Reporter

Given the fact that we now know what destruction a hurricane can do to a nation like Belize, what should we be doing now at the end of the 2010 hurricane season?

Dennis Gonguez

"My advice is usually at the hurricane season we should start reviewing the performance of our hurricane emergency plans. What were the weaknesses of these plans? In the off season now we look to how to improve on our hurricane plan so that next season we don't get caught off guard."

For its part, Gonguez says the Weather Bureau performed well this year in keeping the nation informed on weather conditions.

Dennis Gonguez

"I was pleasantly satisfied with the performance of the National Meth Service. We performed fairly well, we had a few internal problems which I was hope to deal with in the off season but besides that we did pretty good."

Patrick Jones, Reporter

And the addition of the Doppler Radar did that help?

Dennis Gonguez

"That was the biggest tool that assisted us. We could have tracked the systems as they entered the range of the radar and we could have pin pointed almost where they would have made land fall and the impacts of the systems on Belize."

Patrick Jones, Reporter

The hurricane season officially comes to an end today does that mean that we are out of the woods?

Dennis Gonguez

"Not exactly there is a system down near Panama, it only has a 10% chance of development because it's pretty close to land but none the less there is still something in the south western Caribbean."

Other notable storms of the 2010 Hurricane season include Tomas that killed several people in St Lucia and Haiti and also caused substantial damage in a number of south-eastern Caribbean islands. Tropical Storm Nicole was blamed for deaths and destruction in Jamaica. And Hurricane Igor knocked out power to half of Bermuda but spared the British territory major damage or injuries.

LOVEFM