Relatively cool summer forecasted

A climatologist from the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) has forecasted a relatively cool summer season for the region.

Speaking with The Barbados Advocate yesterday on the sidelines of The Caribbean Climate Outlook Forum, which took place at the Accra Beach hotel yesterday morning, Cedric Van Meerbeeck revealed that from the period of June to August 2018 forecasted a relatively cool summer season.

“Although a number of heatwaves are likely to temporarily increase heat stress in vulnerable sections of the population, except in the Guyanas, rainfall total is expected to be lower than usual or similar to the usual,” he said.

“A number of short dry spells are expected even though it is the dry season, along with fewer wet spells than usual, so that leans towards the dryer side, so the latter may reduce the potential for flooding and associated hazards in Belize and in the islands. Never the less there is a concern for flash flooding from extreme wet spells in any areas.”

Van Meerbeeck highlighted that they did not forecast the activity of the hurricane season, rather they looked at the most credible hurricane season forecasts around the world. He revealed that based on the research, they were finding that most of the credible hurricane forecasters around the world were predicting a near normal season, which suggested that it may be less active than last year.

“This by no means implies that there will not be storms or hurricanes, so the message is and remains, prepare for hurricanes no matter where you are in the island. In Belize, there’s always a possibility for a storm or hurricane to impact you and so our message is be in tuned with your weather forecast, because your National MET Services will tell you when its likely to happen and if it happens how bad is the situation expected to be,” he said.

“For Barbados specifically, it does look like it’ll be slightly dryer but not to the extent of having bad drought, so this is good news so it helps us in the first three months of the wet season to reduce the chances of flooding.”

That said, the climatologist noted that the latter part of the wet season, for a big part of the region, may actually end up being wetter than usual, and it is during the wetter part of the season that the concern for flooding becomes greater from September onwards.