Severe hurricane season a real possibility

Barbados should brace for the possibility of bad weather during this year’s hurricane season.

Word of this comes from Chief of Applied Meteorology and Climatology at the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH), Adrian Trotman.

He told Loop News that Barbadians can expect more rain on the island as soon as next month:

“There is the possibility of more rain than normal in May and June; that increase will certainly be better for the farmers.”

He however noted that there is also the possibility of more severe weather during this hurricane season, as the El Niño which has been causing the heat subsides and is replaced by the La Niña, which has the opposite result.

“When you look at the second half of the wet season or the hurricane season, because the El Niño that was mainly driving the dry conditions is weakening pretty rapidly, there is the possibility of it going into its cousin, the La Niña, which does the total opposite.”

Trotman explained that this could mean excessive levels of rainfall in the latter half of the rainy season:

“The possibility for excessively high rainfall in the latter months of 2016 is something that we will continue to monitor as to where it's heading. When the La Niña steps in; unlike the El Niño which limits hurricane and severe activity, the La Niña tends to enhance severe rainfall activity; that is what happened back in 2010 when the drought finished in April/May…

“Moving into the second half of the hurricane season there is a concern that if the La Niña does build that we can have excessively high rainfall.”

He however noted that “we are really looking to see what is going to happen in the later months of the year,” as a gradual shift into the La Niña could shield the island from the severe weather.