- - Barbados - -

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2021 08:57:59 -0400

Good morning to all!

Yesterday was a busy day for all of us down here in "Beautiful Barbados" (the motto of Barbados). Damage assessment in Barbados by officials was going on intensively throughout the day. For me, researching many of the official and news reports.

I am not on any social media, just some messengers, however, I received some photos and videos from my wife, who is currently overseas. But putting all of that together, and having in mind not to bore anyone of you with all of that, took some time of selecting the right media attachments. After I had posted yesterday, there was a live press conference at 16:30 o'clock, hosted by our Prime Minister The Hon. Mia Mottley, on local TV and internet stream. I have saved a link to the recording and I just checked back, it still works and I want to share this with you, see below.

https://www.nationnews.com/2021/07/03/update-hurricane-elsa-press-conference/

For those of you, who don't want to watch the about 2 hours long recording, there is also a summary of what the various ministries and utility providers have assessed so far! I have not heard of any fatalities.

Yesterday and today one can hear hammering and some pumps running in the neighbourhood and probably all over the island.

May you all have a great Sunday.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2021 16:21:16 -0400

Good afternoon everyone,

In my last post I forgot to mention, that the water supply started to come back ad around 23:00 o'clock and the power kicked back in this morning at 01:00 o'clock.

That's it.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2021 16:01:00 -0400

A little earlier as expected, the rain began falling, about two hours later the winds started to pick up. We had breezy days before already.

Here is the timeline (using 24hr format):

07:15 Power went off, tap water as well!!! The water outage was a planned exercise by the Barbados Water Authority. The outage of power was not planned. It just happened. Throughout the day a peak of 75% customers of the customers of Barbados Light & Power were out of power and hence also out of internet access. I was one of them as you already know. In a later Media Briefing the spokesperson of BL&P had the guts to brag about the 25% who were left with power.

10:45 Rain and wind subsided for about 1/2 hour before resuming again. I am assuming that either the eye of ELSA was passing South of us or if we have been in the gap between two feeder bands. I am not sure which it was. However, this time I have not had the pleasure to be in the eye of the hurricane. But I had that experience back in 2010 when Hurricane TOMAS visited us with a full hit! TOMAS was forecast to pass about 25 miles South of us, but it made a last minute wobble to the North and came head on to where I live. That was my very first hurricane to be in. Being in the eye of a Hurricane and outside(!) is a very weird experience. It is ABSOLUTE silence, no bird chirping, no leaf rattling, no wind noise, because there is NO wind, no car noise. I actually lost my balance, due to that silence, and almost fell. Sorry, for the diversion, back to ELSA.

10:50 Before the wind and rain resumed, I made a check walk around the house to look for damage. I had to do that, because just this year we have installed Hurricane shutters, with them shut being unable to look outside. No damage to talk about, just leaves in the pool and the one and the other broken garden plant. Nothing unexpected. I guess, the difference in distance of the two centres of TOMAS (2010) and ELSA (2021), and then fact that ELSA wasn't even a Hurricane when it hit us,  made the difference in wind force. We had much more damage with TOMAS.

11:45 ELSA becomes a Hurricane!

11:50-11:57 DEM Media briefing
This briefing via radio didn't say much, just the fact that ELSA was now a Hurricane, which I had missed. Also, people were urged not to venture out just to take photos and videos in order to post them on social media.

12:45 Winds and rain were subsiding. The show was over for Barbados. A very short impact, because ELSA was in a hurry, 44km/h forward speed when it arrived here.

16:45 Barbados calls out the "all clear".

Damages island-wide as known so far:

100% of consumers out of tap water!
75% of consumers out of power!
No mobile service until about 10:45!
177 Homes lost their roofs!
The number of destroyed homes is unknown to me.
Many (not quantified) broken trees and utility poles!
Flash Flooding in some places.

Pictures:

1. A blown roof, 500m South of my home. I only noticed that this morning,
2. Damaged roofing of a plant nursery to the west-south-west of my home,
3. Toppled containers,
4. Toppled containers,
5. Destroyed house,
6. Blown roof (video),
7. Blown roof,
8. Social media video.
9. Social media video (watch the pillar falling and crumbling, shoddy work).

Why did I title this report "Demolisher ELSA", because before I began writing, here is why (click the link).

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/03/us/miami-dade-building-collapse-saturday/index.html

May everyone be prepared!

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• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2021 02:45:15 -0400

Good night everyone,

I will write a report about yesterday later today. I was out of power, internet and water for the most part of yesterday. The utilities just came back on around past midnight. I am getting tired now. And no worries, "I good" as we say in Barbados. And thanks to all well wishers, it helped indeed.

Write later.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2021 21:03:16 -0400

Good night everyone,

As to the latest information from NHC at 8pm tonight and the BWS (Barbados Weather Service) at 7:45pm tonight, TS ELSA has changed gears in terms of forward speed to currently 28 MPH (44 KM/H).

As to the BWS TV8 evening news weather forecast rainfall from ELSA is expected to start at 2-3am tomorrow morning and storm force winds are to be expected to begin around 6:00am tomorrow.

The closest point of approach is expected to be around 10:00am tomorrow morning, passing to the South of Barbados, which will give me a first row seat.

The storm force wind field of ELSA is large enough to cover entire Barbados even with the distance of CPA.

Rainfall is expected to accumulate to 8-10 inches in total.

The advice to get prepared now would obviously come too late. It should be common sense anyway.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2021 19:06:39 -0400

Good evening everyone,

This might be important not only to Barbados, but also to other near by islands! As to the latest NHC advisory "Potential Tropical Cyclone Five" has officially been put to "Advisory status" by the NHS (https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/). Every island North and South of Barbados this system's path predictions should watch this system very closely!

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2021 12:18:27 -0400

Good morning everyone,

A hefty thunderstorm chased me out of bed this morning. INVEST 95L is here. Barbados is again under Flash Flood Warning. More thunderstorms to be expected throughout the day. According to the Barbados Weather Service (BWS), the accumulated rainfall can reach up to 100mm (4").

Of more concern to me is INVEST 97L ! According to the current spaghetti models and intensity graphs it could become a full hit of a cat 1 or 2 hurricane! Not good!

This thing should be followed closely!

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2021 13:32:45 -0400

Good afternoon to All,

the Barbados Met Office is observing apparently observing two Tropical Waves coming our way.

https://www.nationnews.com/2021/06/22/tropical-wave-bring-rain-thunderstorms/

At 8:00am this morning the first one was located at about 300 miles east-south-east of Barbados and the second one 500 miles away in the same direction. They are moving at 15-20 mph towards us.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2021 21:07:07 -0400

Good evening to All!

I have read a report from Lisette on the Dominica page. First of all I want to express my deepest thanks to Lisette for her post and her concerns and well wishes for our people who have lost their homes or other damage that happened to them! Thank you very much Lisette for that on behalf of all those affected Bajans! Good news are, there were no injuries or fatalities reported.

However, it was not a Tropical Storm! Otherwise it would be have been on the NHC and stormcarib.com records as well. Our Met Office called it a "Freak Event" because it came out of nowhere and was very short lived as well. Talking about an hour+ or so, I don't know for sure.

I am assuming this one was a "Mini-Tornado", as of which we had one before in 2017. That one occurred just a few hundred yards north from where I live, two villages above my location. I only learned about it in the news as well. A very small event in terms of it's size but it took roofs off of several buildings, even half of the roof of a large church. Storms are much bigger in diameter. Hence, I am thinking that the event from 17 June this year was a "Mini-Tornado" as well. There is no other reasonable explanation to me.

On my private website I have a report and photos of this 2017 event. What went through here in 2017 were the beginnings of the much later infamous Hurricane Harvey. http://www.turtle48.de/en/country/bb/20170818_TS_Harvey/index.html. Look for the section "Providence, Christ Church" on that page. The damage of a "Mini-Tornado".

May you all have a good night and be prepared, because "anything can happen". Citing the PM of Barbados, the Hon. Mia Amor Mottley.

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2021 07:36:14 -0400

Good morning to All!

I just read the following two articles in today's online Newspaper edition. Yesterday night June 17, 12:20 am, all hell was loose in the North and East of Barbados. For those of us who always prepare last minute this should have been a wake-up call!

Down South where I live none of that at all, just some rain.

https://www.nationnews.com/2021/06/18/best-freak-event/

https://www.nationnews.com/2021/06/18/mottley-get-ready-anything/

All of this without a warning!

• By Jurgen Starck <weather at turtle48.de>
• Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2021 08:34:38 -0400

Good morning All,

The Barbados Met Office has published the following warnings:

The tail-end of the tropical wave will be affecting the island.
General Forecast: Mostly cloudy to overcast with the occasional scattered light to moderate showers.

Winds Across Barbados: Strong easterly to south easterly breeze from 45 to 55 km/h (28 to 34 mph) and increasing.

General swell information: Moderate in open water with swells ranging from 1.5 to 2.5 meters ( 5 to 8 ft ) and increasing.

Dust-Haze Forecast Across Barbados: A layer of slight dust haze will be visible across the island.

• By Peter Allen <stilettocruises at yahoo.com>
• Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2021 08:07:31 +0000 (UTC)

It's 3.50am here and quite windy out of the SE 20+k i'd say with some thunder 
showers.At long last some rain and,every door and window is now sprawling open 
to let some fresh air in the house because the volcanic ash is now wet.One 
thing is normal my weather man the dog is hiding in the bathroom so some more 
rain and thunder still to come.I'm actually starting to believe this dog feels 
the pressure drop or i need an examination myself lol.