Fewer Wet Days for Caribbean Countries

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BRIDGETOWN – The Barbados-based Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) is forecasting for the next three months, an even lower than usual number of wet spells and that very wet spells is expected in the Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao (ABC Islands), along many islands of the Lesser Antilles, parts of Jamaica and the coastal Guianas.

“A higher than usual number of wet spells is forecast for Belize, Barbados, Grand Cayman, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, while a higher than usual number of very wet spells is forecast for the Greater Antilles,” CIMH said in its latest publication released here on Monday.

It said the implications for the forecast is the faster depletion of large water reservoirs and soil moisture along these months in the ABC Islands, the coastal Guianas and the Lesser Antilles. “The decreasing frequency of very wet spells into March translates to flood potential being low in Belize and the islands and high until early-February in the Guianas,” it added.

CIMH is also indicating that for the period January to March this year, part of the Caribbean Dry Season includes its annual peak in March and the continuation of the long dry season in the southwestern third of the Guianas.

It said February further marks the transition from the secondary wet season into the short dry season in the remainder of the Guianas. It also marks the cool season through February. CIMH said that continued, unusual warmth in the Tropical North Atlantic Ocean coupled with a waning weak La Niña in the Pacific implies a slower decrease in severe weather activity, particularly through January in the Guianas, resulting in high potential for flooding, flash floods, cascading hazards and associated impacts there.

CIMH is also warning of short dry spells increase in frequency as well as comfortable temperatures through February, with episodes of heat discomfort likely limited to inland portions of Belize, the Guianas and Trinidad in March.