- - Barbados - -

• 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