- - Barbados - -

• 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.