• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2023 14:47:53 -0400

Good afternoon everyone,

at about 13:45 AST a hell of rain broke loose and smashed at least the southern part of Barbados with a horrendous amount of water. Good for the Garden but no good for people on the road. The strong rain lasted for about half an hour, now as I type, its just drizzling. This weather is expected to last into Wednesday. A long before announced large Trough is pulling through the area, mostly affecting the southern Windward Islands. Flash-Flood Warning is in effect since this morning.

The rain on the ground.

Barbados Weather Service radar image.

That was a little taste of what is to came later.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2023 10:21:11 -0400

Good morning everyone,

This is an article about the seaweed in Barbados on our local TV website. The first two pictures could be seen in a local TV report last night. This plage is massive this year, like never seen before. It is forecast to go on that bad until into July or so. It is real problem to remove it from the beaches. Very bad for tourism!

https://www.cbc.bb/cbctest/?s=Sargassum

Have a great day.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2023 09:56:53 -0400

Good morning everyone,

the following article appeared in today's edition of a local newspaper.

<a href=""https://www.nationnews.com/2023/03/28/drought-forecast-region/" target="_blank">Drought forecast for the region</a>

Have a nice day.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2023 15:10:29 -0400

Good day everyone,

I have read a number of reports from other special hurricane correspondents about the Sargassum Seaweed (Sargassum). My thanks to Jane Higgins (St.Thomas) and "Hogan" (Grenada).

Since this yearly re-occurring "pest" seems to be the new seasonal normal since about 2015, I also wanted to make a contribution to the subject.

I have seen it for the first time in Barbados in 2015, see link below "Best Caribbean Beach".

On February 12th, this year, I took two more photos of the said "Beat Caribbean Beach":

Left: The seaweed on the beach. Right: There is more coming. Not so much the "Best Caribbean Beach" any more. Particularly not for the "High Season"!

However, how unbelievably it may sound, I saw a few guests walking through it and took a plunge into the Atlantic.

The Problem with that type of seaweed are,

1) when it dries up it starts to rot and develops a very unpleasant odour! Nothing that you want have in your nose while sunbathing near it.

2) In some years it came in such masses onto our shores, so that it brought the fishing industry pretty much down fore some weeks.

Some farmers came up with the idea to make fertilizer for plants out of it. Even worse, some chefs made dishes with it!

BOTH BAD IDEAS!

Soon after that, our government brought these types of use to a stop, after a lab has found that this seaweed contains quit a bit of heavy metals, which are bad for human health!

Location of photos: google-maps

Best Caribbean Beach: https://www.nationnews.com/2015/02/04/crane-voted-best-caribbean-beach/

Sargassum Bay (Fishery Problems): https://www.nationnews.com/2015/05/11/sargassum-bay/

Wikipedia about Sargassum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargassum

Well, that's it for today. Be safe everyone.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2022 09:07:09 -0400

Good morning everyone,

As of 7:00 am Barbados is under Flash-Flood Warning. So far it will expire at 6:00 pm today, if not updated.

Barbados weather radar

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2022 09:56:43 -0400

Good morning to all,

since about an hour Barbados is getting pounded with heavy rain! A Flash-Flood Warning has been issued by the Barbados Meteorological Service. The fields below us are partially covered with water because the ground was already saturated.

Here it comes, about an hour ago, looking South-West.

20221010_083940_Rain_coming_DSC_3911.jpg

Looking South.

20221010_083950_Rain_coming_DSC_3912.jpg

Looking East.

20221010_083950_Rain_coming_DSC_3912.jpg

Here it is.

20221010_085357_There_it_is_DSC_3931.jpg

OK, I done writing, the rain done raining. That was a lot of rain!

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2022 07:36:18 -0400

Hi, Nada Sonia in St. Lucia,

I would say, this "loop swirly feature" are the remnants of former Tropical Depression #12, which is drifting North-West and now getting ripped apart by wind-sheer or something like that.

Have a nice day.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sat, 8 Oct 2022 18:11:12 -0400

Good evening everyone,

I wished the people in Nicaragua would be able read this, even though I have my doubts they could.

The poor people over there are actually getting another brunt of nature, as if they wouldn't have had enough during the past few years. I really feel sorry for them and how they could possibly prepare for more to come in the future when climate change is making everything much worse for the entire globe.

Current status: TS JULIA affecting Nicaragua already with its wind and rain field.

I actually don't know what else to say.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2022 09:10:51 -0400

Hello Trinidad,

NOTE: The following information does NOT claim to be exact, there it is entirely without any warranty whatsoever. Don't rely on this information if you may have to make serious decisions for your survival!

Barbados weather radar at 08:10 AST.

20221006_081000_INVEST_91L_BWS_Radar.jpg

How much longer may it last?

In order to answer that question I played a little bit around with zoom.earth, see partial screenshot below.

Below the words "TRINIDAD & TOBAGO" in the partial screenshot below you see a label saying "147 km". This label partially covers a slanted white line that peeps out to the left (in the middle of Trinidad) and to the right (at the south-eastern edge of INVEST 91L). Those 147 km represent the length of that slanted line. Below that you can see another label saying "30 km/h". That is the wind speed. And the wind is coming from ESE.

Let's assume the wind speed is near the speed of the system's forward speed. For easier calculation let's round up 147 -> 150 km.

Hence, we get 150 km / 30 km/h = 5h. It may take 5 hours, starting at 8:30, for the system to have left Trinidad. That would be 13:30 (1:30pm) today.

As I said above, this might not be exact! Don't rely on it in critical situations! It is more like an educated guess!

Take these 5 hours as the MINIMUM period of time until it might over.

Partial screenshot of Trinidad and Tobago

20221006_083000_INVEST_91L_TT_Details.jpg

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2022 08:11:34 -0400

Dear Ian,

I thank you very much Ian for your kind words! I appreciate it very much. It's good to know that one's work may have helped someone else in some way, no matter how little or how much.

Take care, Ian and all your fellow countrymen and women and who else may be over there.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2022 12:48:38 -0400

Good afternoon to all,

Below the images are the filenames, the begin with to numbers, indicating date and time in AST (UTC-4).

NHC Tropical Weather Outlook

20221005_080000_INVEST_91L_NHC_Tropical_Weather_Outlook.jpg

Radar imagery from Barbados

20221005_120500_INVEST_91L_BMS_Radar.jpg

Air Force reconnaissance mission

20221005_121544_INVEST_91L_USAF_Hurricane_Hunter.jpg

Visible Satellite

20221005_121500_INVEST_91L_Satellite_visible.jpg

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2022 09:45:23 -0400

Good morning everyone,

https://www.nationnews.com/2022/10/05/tropical-wave-passes/

Nothing to add to this.

Have a great day.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2022 23:09:32 -0400

From Barbados again,

a little earlier than 23:00 hours the first smooth and fresh (chilling) winds were coming in. The latest CAP-Warning just came in and is not stating any significant changes. Neither in wind speeds nor in downfall or forward speed compared to the previous one which I had posted. One storm-force wind gust has been detected near the airport.

Have a good night folks.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2022 20:27:54 -0400

Good evening all,

I think what is coming tonight is not much to worry about, unless one is living in a flood prone area with already well saturated grounds. Downfall is forecast to 1-3" with 4" in a few locations of Barbados. Otherwise, just some hard hitting rain on the roof and some gusty storm-strong gusts of wind. Please, note the pink frame below.

Barbados Weather Service CAP-Warning.

Weather Forecast on local TV tonight.

Depending on how precise that Graphic is, The two centres of Invest 91L (yes TWO centres!) might even pass a click south of Barbados, I am not taking a bet on that, though. In this case however, not good for Grenada and the Grenadines and T&T.

It is obviously not going to hit the Leeward Islands! So, keep calm Isabel in St. Croix and Jane in St. Thomas. 😉

Everyone take care and watch it anyway!

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2022 12:12:34 -0400

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2022 21:13:00 -0400

Good evening to all,

here comes a brief summarization of tonight's Barbados' weather report/forecast. I think the screenshots are speaking for themselves. Please, pay particular attention to the last screenshot!

Winds Across Barbados currently: Gentle southerly to south-easterly breeze from 10 to 30 km/h (6 to 19 mph) with higher gust.

Situation around midday today:

Situation in the afternoon (enlarged):

Forecast for tonight: (read the text below the temperatures!)

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2022 18:22:48 -0400

Good afternoon all,

Today was I got caught on the wrong foot. Around noon I saw a trough coming our way, then I remembered it was mentioned in the local weather forecast last night.

There it comes...

At about the same time, I received a flash-flood warning.

CAP warning.

I have never ever experienced a rain like this other than during active storms around here! The rain smashed in from the south with nearly storm-force gusts!

The rain reached up to the door handle of the terrace door! Made the cat food (left on grey tray) collateral damage. That door is about 10-11" recessed from overhanging roof.

The rain was coming in really hard on ran into the room below the door, even though they have these rubber lips at the bottom.

Well, it was not a drama, but an annoyance.

As a consequence, I had to call "general mop" for duty. The most important tool today.

After the shutter was down I could relief "general mop" of his duties.

Then some heavy gusts were coming in and the rain even smashed to the top of the windows or higher, but I couldn't see that from inside.

Rain hammering against the windows.

At least two flights had to in holding patterns, due to very bad visibility.

Air traffic impacted as well.

I have never seen any rain like this one today, only with TS THOMAS (2010) and H1 ELSA last year. Today there was no storm here, just a "trough" with near storm-force gusts!

As I am closing this story for today the CAP warning, see above, has been extended until 6am tomorrow.

May you all have a good night and stay dry.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2022 11:09:14 -0400

Good morning everyone,

Barbados is under a Flash-Flood Warning as well as a Severe Thunderstorm Watch, due to a shear-line rolling across the island. Rain is currently continuos and lightning and thunder are sporadic, and some strikes are really strong.

Good luck to all who are affected by IAN! Take care everyone.

• By Peter Allen <stilettocruises at yahoo.com>
• Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2022 00:26:56 +0000 (UTC)

The bad I always starts down low,with the exception of Ivan who was low and  
got lower for Tobago and really was a monster for Grenada and beyond.Them eyes 
don't forget them. 

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2022 12:10:15 -0400

Good morning everyone,

since this morning I can perfectly watch INVEST 98L passing South of Barbados. Bringing frequent short showers and some wind. Earlier this morning the weather station at the airport (BGI) showed 51 km/h sustained winds and gusts up to 85 km/h. The winds are less strong at this time of writing.

This morning at 08:00 AST, looking straight South.

Taken at 10:40 AST. Heading for the Southern Windward Islands.

Situation at 11:00 AST.

On the real, animated map it looks like as if there would be a centre of circulation (COC) be in the making to the South of Trinidad. However, the question of course is, how precise this animation is compared to reality.

Good luck everyone, everywhere.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2022 16:32:02 -0400

The fact that you are sending kind words like you did, means a lot to me!

Very much appreciated.

Kind regards.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2022 23:47:28 -0400

Here is the link:

https://zoom.earth/storms/fiona-2022/#overlays=wind

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2022 23:38:08 -0400

Dear Kate,

I saw your post on the Vieques page of stormcarib.com. I am a fellow correspondent on the Barbados page. May be this graphic may help you. At least I hope so.

Fiona just in the Mona passage, as Dave mentioned in his detailed as always comment today. He is always a little ahead of NHC. Well worth to be commanded!!! Thanks Dave!

I wish you and all the other northern Caribbean islands up to Bermuda the best of luck!

Sincerely!

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2022 00:15:04 -0400

Just now a hell of a rain was coming down here and I had to rush inside in order not to get my laptop or myself getting totally soaked. The rain is all of a sudden hammering onto my roof. Any phone calls or such would be impossible to listen to.

Conclusion: Once you think its over don't you ever think it is! And Barbados is right now not even in the mid of it at all! So, may you be very careful what is coming towards your area. As we all should know, the bad part of such a storm is always the South-East quadrant. So to speak, the "fat" end with lots of rain. Thunder and lightning are adding to it.

Take care everyone!

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2022 14:32:52 -0400

Good afternoon all,

I am not aware if Barbados had any considerable rain after midnight. But we haven't had any since the morning even though the sky was completely overcast here in the South. About 1/2 hour ago "blue holes" started peeping through the clouds and it's getting friendlier by the minute. The coconut tree in the picture indicates the breeze is coming in from South-East. Things are getting back to normal.

Looking good.

Here one, just for the fun of it and it's rare occurrences:

Empty Eastern Caribbean air space, a very rare sight. Spiced up with the partial flight track of the latest Hurricane Hunter mission.

Here a link to what happened in Guadeloupe for those who are interested. Severe flooding over there, cars washed away and sadly 1 casualty and 1 missing person. Some reports say 2 deaths. When you watch the damage keep in mind that this was "just a storm", not even a hurricane. Wind was obviously not the major culprit but the copious amounts of water Fiona delivered.

https://rci.fm/guadeloupe/infos/Risques-naturels/En-images-Fiona-dechaine-les-eaux-sur-la-Guadeloupe

Good luck to all who are having Fiona still ahead of themselves!

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2022 14:54:53 -0400

Good afternoon all,

currently the winds and showers which are coming in to Barbados are not coming from TS FIONA, instead they are going into Fiona. Fiona feeder bands seem to suck in everything they can get a hold of. The wind is coming in from the South-South-West. Inbound and outbound flights are going which ever direction they choose either West or East. Funny.

Note the huge cloud field of Fiona and the centre of rotation at the front end!

It looks like, that Barbados would be in form some rain as well later.

Good luck to all.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2022 15:10:10 -0400

Good afternoon everyone,

just a short note: Coming from Cuarçao, a US Air Force Hurricane Hunter is currently near TS FIONA, as Dave and the NHC have mentioned.

US Air Force Hurricane Hunter

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2022 23:41:46 -0400

Good night again,

That was a very quick development!

TS FIONA

At current the CPA Tool of this website predicts a direct hit to St Croix!!!

Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 140 miles (220 km) east of the centre.

Considering the size of the wind field it may probably become a direct hit for almost all the islands in the North-Eastern Caribbean.

Get ready in St Croix et all!

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2022 21:24:07 -0400

Good evening to all,

a message to all Leeward Islanders up to Puerto Rico and may be even Hispaniola. Everyone who has posted today before me was talking about TD SEVEN. Hence, I am writing this_

You may not only want to look forward to much needed rain but also for TS FIONA, according to the graphic below.

Take a look at the coloured vertical bar to the right of the graphic where it is getting green and look at the dates. According to this table TD SEVEN is supposed to become a TS (Fiona) by 2am tonight or at least 2pm tomorrow.

I think it is advisable to take all lightweight, easily flying "projectiles" out of your open spaces or secure them as long as there is still time left for it. Better safe than sorry. If my interpretation may be wrong, I would be happy to apologize. However, I did not create the graphic.

Preparation it is. Good night to all.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2022 16:49:30 -0400

Good afternoon to all,

I don't remember to have ever seen an official statement like this from the Barbados Weather Service (BWS) ever before. But since we, the stormcarib.com community are close neighbours, I thought I should share this with you, because it could potentially affect all of us.

The BWS issued a "Heat Information Statement" today. I never heard that term before. So, here it is:

A good night to all.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2022 09:49:40 -0400

Good morning everyone,

the day began with a quite long lasting moderate rain. This led the BWS to publish a flash-flood warning for Barbados valid until 12:00 (noon), for now.

The winds came in with a southerly component, soaking my entire terrace, including the cat food bowls.

The cause of this rain was another Tropical Wave in the trail of TS EARL.

The Tropical Wave South-East of Barbados.

BWS Weather Discussion.

So much for now.

Enjoy your Sunday.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2022 21:02:04 -0400

God evening to all,

below you will find a video of today's action in the skies. The dynamic in the clouds is almost breathtaking. I have focussed this screen recording on the Leeward Islands, because that is where the action is going to happen tonight and tomorrow. The recording is a time lapse of the past 12 hours.

Enjoy it or be amazed what ever you prefer.

Good night to all and be safe.

Attachment: 20220902_200000_INVEST_91L_animation_by_ZOOM_EARTH.mp4
Description: video/mp4

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2022 00:53:51 -0400

this INVEST 91L must literally be a real piece of INTEREST to the NOAA Hurricane Hunters. They are obviously running a relay against 91L handing over the baton from one aircraft (type) to another. Every day another one but also the same Hurricane Hunter which I have mentioned in my last post has been coming back to Barbados, refuelling and heading out for the "not yet beast" 91L.

As me being an amateur, I am observing and more guessing rather than knowing, to be honest. Since, this season and its long term forecasts has bluffed everyone as to be an above average season until now, add climate change to the bill, which has not panned out as yet to be, it seems to be of great interest to NOAA to find out more. May be they are sending all these different hurricane hunters down here in order to explore 91L in very much more detail to find out what is going on or not going on for a reason. Meaning, to learn more about new weather/climate patterns. Climate change has overrun everyone and continues to do so. I have evidence of it even here in Barbados. Even before just the term "climate change" hit the world wide news stage!

So, what is to come next? This question has to be answered by hesitating politicians, the weather-pros, including the NHC and "Klotzbach et all". All of them need to rethink!

Back to reality as of today.

As Isabel wrote on Aug 29 on the St Croix page so rightly, some "wobbles" during the move of a system can make a big difference for the people in its path. Now, look here for the wobbles just happening...

INVEST 91L wobbling down and up (look close)... what's next? Keep watching!

Also, the cone is just predicting the tolerance of the path of the centre of a system, but NOT its ALL OVER SIZE (other than storm force winds)! Look at it. Just compare the size of the cone and the size of the clouds (yellow marking). This beast can even bring flash floods and more to the entire Eastern Caribbean. WATCH OUT PEOPLE!

The latest Hurricane Hunter just came back from a mission. Minutes ago.

All of you "Leewarders" keep watching 91L!

Have a good night everyone.

-- 

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2022 20:12:07 -0400

The Barbados Weather Service (BWS) has evolved to become a very good regional source for weather information as well. In the past few years they have just not only improved their hardware and software for collecting weather related data independently (independent from NHC), they now have their own direct satellite access for that matter, and as a result they have improved their accuracy of forecasts tremendously. It is just amazing compared to what it was years ago!

I can also recommend their radar and satellite pages for near real time views. However, the radar only reaches out 400 km from Barbados where the range ends at about Guadeloupe. The delay to real time is up to about 10 minutes.

Another very good website is zoom.earth. This one is absolutely terrific. However, it needs a little time to figure out all of its features (use the menu to the right to figure out). But, I can promise, it's worth a try. It is based on NHC data but much more detailed and more frequent rather than what is available on the currently official NHC website. It also provides animations of wind directions and wind speeds all any point all over the screen.

I am hoping that you will enjoy at least a try of all of the above said.

Good night everyone.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2022 19:04:29 -0400

Good evening to everyone,

The Hurricane Hunter mentioned before has landed in Barbados. I am hoping that the next NHC advisory will mention some of the insights of that mission. Particularly the Leeward Islands should watch this closely.

Hurricane Hunter has landed.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2022 11:37:47 -0400

Good day  everyone,

a NOAA Hurricane Hunter transformed Gulfstream IV has just left Barbados heading straight East. I am guessing, it is going to examine INVEST 91L.

Hurricane Hunter underway.

Enjoy the rest of the day.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2022 22:54:43 -0400

Many thanks to Jane from St. Thomas for her explanation to my latest post. Very much appreciated!

Good night to all.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2022 21:09:50 -0400

Good evening all,

This is more a question rather than a report.

I just have observed dozens of lightning strikes south of Barbados. Some of them were even spreading horizontally all over the horizon I was able to see. I have never seen anything like this in my entire life. There was only lightning to see but no thunder to hear. May be this happened too far away to hear it. If anyone would have an explanation for this, I would appreciate to let me know.

May be Gert or Dave may have an idea?

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2022 18:34:02 -0400

The "show" is not over yet. Just minutes ago the BWS has extended the Flash-Flood Warning until tomorrow morning 6:00 am.

If you fellow islanders, no matter where, want to know what to expect, then click the link below. I recommend to do that on a computer or a tablet, not on a smartphone.

https://zoom.earth/#view=15.629,-61.983,7z/date=2022-08-13,17:10,-4/map=live/overlays=wind

Once the page has loaded, click the play button near the bottom of the page and wait until the animation has been fully loaded. This might give you some sort of insight of what you might can expect.

Good night for now to everyone.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2022 17:26:15 -0400

Good afternoon all,

today Barbados got literally tons of water by repeated showers from a Tropical Wave.

The rainfall intensity was from moderate to heavy as seen in the picture.

Duration of each shower varied from short, like less than 10 minutes to medium like minutes in the two digits. Accumulated amounts of rain became serious so that the BWS felt it was necessary to publish a Flesh-Flood warning across Barbados, effective as of 14:22 until 18:00 today.

Shortened version of the original warning.

I am hoping the Leeward Islands also have profited from that TW, water wise. Let me know, please.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2022 22:32:54 -0400

Good evening all,

as of tonight, it looks like that my last post turns out to have been a false alarm. Even the NHC has reduced it's predictions for disturbance 1, aka INVEST 97L, down to a 10% chance of development within a 5-day range. I am thinking that this is good news. However, it still should be watched. It wouldn't be the first mistake of the NHC.

Take care.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2022 18:53:14 -0400

Good evening to all,

today was a day as the title says.

"Rain, Rain, Rain,"
(and to make it a rhyme)
"I aint complain!"

Strong but short shower.

About just a few seconds after the first drops were falling more than half of the table was soaked, saying it got stronger fast. Visibility towards the distance was very limited as usual.

As of time I am writing we had half a dozen of these showers today, starting around midday until now. Duration was varying between 5-15 minutes. But all strong.

Our garden must be happy as Larry!

But that is not all I wanted to tell.

As of today the NHC has a "big one" on it's radar. Not that I am waiting for it, but this Tropical Wave seems to be important enough for the NHC to mention it. When I caught it first, it was only on the five-day-forecast image, not at the front image.

30% in five days.

Hence, I looked elsewhere:

The marking shows the approximate size. Looks kinda a "Biggie" to me. But that does not necessarily need to mean much. ;-)

That's it for tonight. Keep watching this one.

Good night everyone.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 07:47:17 -0400

Good morning all,

this post is meant to be an explanation for Jane Higgins question from St. Thomas.

Click here: https://zoom.earth/#view=13.1,-39.4,5z/date=2022-07-28,07:00,-4/map=live/overlays=wind

Once that page is loaded click the play button near the bottom of the page. Wait a seconds until the animation has completely loaded. Then you will see a slowly rotating patch of clouds in the centre of the image. I am guessing the dust is just riding piggy-back on the clouds.

By the way, this webpage is a tremendous tool for tracking storms, much more detailed than the usual NOAA pages. It also delivers more detailed forecast data.

Best regards.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2022 12:39:24 -0400

Good day to all,

The most part of Disturbance 1 is passing North of Barbados. However, that doesn't mean the we are going away empty handed.

Barbados weather Radar at 12:00 pm local time.

The Barbados Weather Service (BWS) is predicting only little rain of 15 mm accumulated amount for the day.

BWS accumulated amount of rain (pink marking).

However, we got a good lashing from the outskirts of Disturbance 1, before it was really here. The attached video is from this morning at about 8 am. It lasted only some minutes. Since then we haven't had anything stronger than that. But it was good enough for the garden.

That's it for now. Take care everyone.

Attachment: 20220701_080412_Disturbance_1_Barbados.mp4
Description: video/mp4

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2022 17:35:01 -0400

Good afternoon to all,

I caught it a lil late, but the Hurricane Hunter "Miss Piggy" (nickname of the aircraft) that we had here, was out for another mission, but obviously it either had its transponder turned off or it was flying too low. Not even flightradar24.com could detect it. It was flying for an unknown period of time very low at an altitude of 950 ft. above sea level! Then it went up to cruising level and eventually landed in St. Croix, USVI. May be Isabel up there could take her "End of day photo" at the airport?

Route of the flight.

I know that this not important, but unusual.

Here in Barbados we are fine so far, just a little above normal winds and here and there a shower, some of them hefty but short lived. However, the CPA (Closest Point of Approach) is still to come, around 21:30 tonight. We also have a good portion of water out there coming towards us.

Barbados Weather Service Radar image (Barbados in the centre of circles).

So much for today. May you all have a good night.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2022 15:55:38 -0400

Good afternoon to all,

Here is the latest CAP warning from this morning. For further explanation please read my last post from yesterday.

The Hurricane Hunter is on the job

According to the NHC the Hurricane Hunter has found storm force winds while investigating INVEST 94L. Excerpt: "... A NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft is currently investigating the system and has found winds to tropical storm force....".

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2022 20:26:26 -0400

Last post for today, promise,

I am posting this for a reason (again). It seems, that the Barbados Weather Service (BWS) is currently posting more detailed information about what we know about INVEST 94L, compared to what the NHC is reporting. I also want to advise everyone to install and/or register for the CAP or CAP.CAP app (for smartphones only). CAP stands for the COMMON ALERTING PROTOCOL, which is an international standard protocol for emergency news/earnings/alerts messaging. I know that the advices and warnings which I am getting are mainly centred on Barbados, but just like in this case (INVEST 94L), the information may be sometimes also useful to my fellow islanders because of the size of those systems. What is important to know about this, is that those messages are provided by local authorities in general. Which means, that you need to subscribe for a country from where you want to receive those warnings or alarms, in case the country where you are living may not have the means to provide such information.

Since the CAP app is working via internet and SMS you probably can receive these information from anywhere, as long you are connected to the internet or your phone network. It works on smartphones, and computers via various ways. Such as an app that you can download on your mobile phone. On your computer you can get the same information via email.

Think about it. Then again, if you may find out it is not covering sufficient information for your needs/location, you can always delete it and cancel your account.

I gone now. Not coming back tonight, for sure. Good night to everyone! 😉

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2022 17:59:24 -0400

Good evening again,

I had just posted the hurricane hunter and shortly after, a decent rain from a "harbinger Tropical Wave" which is NOT connected to INVEST 94L just released part of it's heavenly gold a.k.a. rain! That was a good downpour and on satellite photos (like stormcarib's front page or below) it looks like that the Leeward Islands may get some of this as well. Crossing my fingers for everyone out there who had less rainfall rather than Barbados has had in recent months. And with the threat of droughts going on as predicted by scientists, I guess, all of us have to increase our own (private) water storages and catchment areas wherever possible. Sounds easy, I know, but it is not that easy, know that too. We need to get more creative... But how?

The "harbinger wave" on satellite photo.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2022 16:45:31 -0400

Good evening to all,

at 16:08 o'clock a NOAA "Lockheed WP-3D Orion" Hurricane Hunter landed in Barbados. I guess we all know what it's purpose/mission might be, don't we.

NOAA "Lockheed WP-3D Orion" Hurricane Hunter, nickname "Miss Piggy".

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2022 11:47:19 -0400

Good morning to all,

yesterday a Tropical Wave was passing through the Lesser Antilles island chain. It has brought a fair amount of rain during on and off showers. Most of the action started before midday and it ended around sunset. The Barbados Weather Service (BWS) predicted an accumulated rain fall of 20mm and winds peaking at 55 km/h and higher gusts near showers. My personal experience can confirm that.

Sad news for the Leeward Islands: There is not much rain in for you, according to the two BWS radar pictures (this is meant to be a reply to Isabel from St. Croix and all other interested parties).

Looking South: Where the clouds are dark and low at the horizon a strong thunderstorm was scaring the fish. It also affected air traffic, see screenshots further down below.

The rain is here, I had to move inside.

The horizon invisible, due to dust haze and rain.

BWS Radar: This shows about all of the action. There was almost nothing further north.

Affecting air traffic

Aircraft avoiding bad weather. Everyone tried to bypass the thunderstorm.

The show is over

Radar image as of 09:05 AST of this morning: Larger area of the radar image shows not much rain in the north.

However, the north is partially out of the radar's range. Hence, I am going to cross my fingers, that you might get some rain up there.

I also have attached two short videos. I guess, they are speaking for themselves.

That's it for today.

See yuh.

Attachment: 20220610_161434_The_wind_is_here_no608500.mp4
Description: video/mp4

Attachment: 20220610_161434_Steamroller_no608501.mp4
Description: video/mp4