Hurricanes in Central America

Before we moved to Belize I had never even thought of the possibility of being caught in a hurricane. In england we get some storms and high winds but not to the extent the region in central america and souther USA receives.

We are in the middle of the hurricane season at the moment and a look at the weather map shows 5 hurricanes all around us. We flew around the last few hurricanes on our last visist to Aruba, narrowly avoiding "Dennis" in Miami and also in Aruba as it came within a few hundred miles. Then when we arrived back in Belize, "Dennis" came whizzing passed us again hitting the northern Yucatan region of Mexico and damaging our favourite holday destination, Tulum.

And now as we prepare to leave Rochester on the North East coast of USA I can see "Rita", making its way west across the gulf of mexico. And as happened with "Katrina" the hurricane has picked up speed making it a Category 5. Thats 155+ mph. The warm waters of the gulf seem to add fuel to these winds. We fly from Houston on Friday afternoon so i think we may be getting a bumpy ride home to Belize.

Some people argue Global warming is causing this increase in hurricane activity and others say its cyclical. i.e the trends in hurricane activity run in cycles and at the moment we are in the midst of high hurricane activity. Whatever the cause, the last 2 years has seen a marked increase in my view. I do not know how people in Florida and especially the keys put up with all this. It seems to hit them all the time. I remember last year 4/5 hurricanes going through Florida and this year already they have had 4.

Lets just hope this new one doesnt cause as much damage as"Katrina" did.