Today the Chief Met Officer told us what's causing these very high tides:

Ronald Gordon, Chief Met Officer
"Also known as king tides, occur every so often and they happened when the moon and the sun are perfectly aligned. So that would be whenever you have a full moon or a new moon and to compound it they are even higher when the moon is actually closer to the earth or even when the earth is closer to the sun."

"So in this particular case we are approaching a full moon. In fact today is a full moon and it's referred to a super moon because in this case the moon is closest or this closest approach to the earth and we know that tides occur because of the gravitational pull that the moon exerts on the earth and also the sun of course but the moon is much closer so that has a more significant impact in terms of affecting the tides."

"So what we have right now is a perfect combination of circumstances to allow for extra or more significantly higher tides than we normally experience."

Jules Vasquez
"It seems that the high watermark is getting higher. Are we facing a combination of these king tides, super moon, all these things but along with rising sea levels?"

Ronald Gordon, Chief Met Officer
"That is certainly something that is possible. They appear to be higher each time or each year and based on the predictions from the climate models there is likely to be or there is going to be an increasing sea level due to climate change and global warming."

"So certainly if you add the effects of the tides along with that then you will get higher tides especially during these times and from what I understand listening to other sources is that we also have a situation where the rivers or the Belize river in particular is a bit higher than normal, so the combination of factors certainly will affect the level at which the water moves inland."

Jules Vasquez
"With this particular alignment of the planets, etcetera, should we expect that we'll have king tides next month as well?"

Ronald Gordon, Chief Met Officer
"Basically, from what I saw in the, again, I'm looking at also what you're seeing, they are saying that we have about, I think, three or four super moons back to back consecutively."

"So in that case, certainly, we do expect that in the following months, we will see, again, this phenomenon occurring. But again, the factors, we don't if this will be aligned perfectly in terms of the, especially when it comes to the river conditions."

"So that's something that we need to also take into consideration. But for the short term, I also want to note that from what I read, this will peak sometime over the weekend and we do expect some increase in rainfall."

"So it is a possibility that we may see further flooding."

Gordon also admitted that the MET office does not currently have a working tide gauge to see how much higher these tides really are:

Ronald Gordon, Chief Met Officer
"This department in the past had had to engage, I believe one at least, at the port of Belize, and we do plan to install others going into the future. In fact, that is one area that we do know we have a lot of limitations at the moment."

"So what we plan to do in the future is to install tide gauges at least some of these stations so we can monitor sea level rise in the long term, also monitor the phenomenon like this one. And also, of course, monitor storm surge."

"So that is something that we're looking into. We do have a tide gauge at the moment pending installation. We're trying to find a perfect location to install that one."

The next high tide is at 9:30 tonight.