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Posted By: Marty 2016 Rainfall Statistics - 11/12/16 10:32 AM

Belize, or in this case Belmopan, has a general pattern. A Wet season starting in the last week of May or early June, tailing off by November, with the Dry season from around February to May.

Yet every year is different. Statistics can play tricks, look at this year, mathematically, that is the statistical average for August was by far the wettest month. Yet, in practice, we had a surprisingly long dry period in August. So statistics can play tricks. Some people play with us with statistics, to try to prove their point of view, such as the Climate people.

In the below graph, the actual, factual daily RAIN is shown by the blue vertical lines. Even those can play tricks, because I record from about midnight, through the full 24 hours to the next midnight, yet some rains run over the midnight period, so sometimes total a lot, but if shown over 2 days, may look smaller than what we experience.

So statistically the triangles show the Monthly rainfall figure, the white, open triangles are the long term typical or average monthly figures, the dark, filled triangles are this years figures. .. . The dotted lines joining these triangles have not actual meaning, just make it easier to see where the triangles are, they only give a sort of overall impression.

The real, practical information is in the two light lines. The light blue giving some effective indication of water in the ground, near the surface, which grass and other small plants can access, and tend to indicate muddy condition periods. They can happen very rapidly and dry up fairly fast. The light green shows the effective deeper water that trees and larger plants can use. So you can see the Dry periods this year in March, April, May and surprisingly, in August.

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The below graph, shows the longer term rainfall. Daily is the same, but the running averages, the light blue shows the very random nature of our rains, as actually seen over a 31 day running average. Yet the longer term 365 day running averages are much more steady over each year.

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