Barbadians urged to be prepared

Predictions have already been made for “a slightly above average hurricane season”.

Clem Williams, Director of Met Services acknowledged the above yesterday, as he gave an overview of the 2018 hurricane season, while speaking at a meeting of the Public Information and Education Standing Committee of Emergency Services, hosted by the Department of Emergency Management at its headquarters in Warrens Industrial Park, St. Michael and chaired by the Barbados Government Information Service.

Williams pointed out that it is still early days yet for information to be forthcoming about this year’s hurricane season, and as such, more detailed information will come to hand sometime next month. He suggested however that Barbadians draw from the occurrences of last year, which saw an active hurricane season in spite of predictions of “a below average season” and as such, prepare themselves for any eventuality.

“What is happening at this stage, is that the prediction models with respect to the different parameters that are used to guide predictions, there is a fairly wide spread in what those models are saying at this time. Having said that, the folks at Colorado State (University), they have still put their early warning projections out and this would have been around April 5, when these predictions were made,” Williams explained.

“And they are going for a slightly above average season. They were suggesting that we can see probably about 14 named storms, seven of which are likely to become hurricanes and three likely to become major hurricanes,” he further revealed.

He added, “Now I will go back to 2017, where the initial projections were averaging, slightly average or a slightly below average season. That was what the initial projections were saying for the 2017 season. Now we know that that is not what happened. Rather than below average, we had an above average season and for us here in the region, we know how catastrophic that was, with respect to some of our neighbouring islands,” he meanwhile stressed, while urging Barbadians to be prepared.