nothing

Still watching this week's old front stalling out increasing rain chances along the Gulf and east coast through the weekend. Slight chances still picking up on models as maybe a low tries to form off the east coast. EURO/GFS blend of ensembles here. Eventual motion would be NE so maybe just increased rains/winds as it does. Little something to watch. Nothing to worry about from the NHC on it. Nothing else cooking. www.spaghettimodels.com

Jim and Janneke returned Sunday

FB CaribbeanWeatherCenter ABC Islands

SAHARAN DUST DOMINATES ACROSS THE LOCAL REGION!
Forecast for Sunday over the ABC Islands... Partly to mostly sunny and warm; hazy!

Partly to mostly sunny and warm. Hazy. The wind will be moderate to strong (decrease, 14-19 knots) from the southeast and the temperatures will generally be around 27 degrees Celsius / 81 degrees Fahrenheit during the night and 33 degrees Celsius / 91 degrees Fahrenheit during the day. The Saharan dust will lead to whitish skies and lower visibility and it could lead to unpleasant effects among those who suffer from allergies or respiratory problems as those can worsen. These dusty conditions are expected to remain today and tomorrow.

El Niño is gone! Is this the end of the exceptional and historic drought across the ABC Islands?


The weak El Niño has had some big impacts on the local islands since it was classified. We have been having below average rainfall since December 2018 and a big deficit since January 2019. Many areas have not gotten more than 30 mm of rain in 7 months, that is an exceptional low amount of rain and makes so far this year one of the driest years in recent history. Many people have also commented that it is also warmer than average, which is true, but do not know why. Our thinking (hypothetically spoken), is the fact that we have been having an exceptional drought, leading to the death of many plants and grass and so the soil has been exposed and because of the lack of moisture, the ground is warming much faster (kind of a sand dune or desert effect) where temperatures rise fast and also because of the lack of significant cloudiness and many sun hours in the last several weeks, the heat has been accentuated.
Now the El Niño is finally gone, does this mean that the drought will end soon?
Not necessarily. This weak El Niño was strongly coupled with the atmosphere and it will take some time for its effects to diminish across the local area and the computer models are not optimistic so far for the rest of this year, but that can still change as it will depend on how the neutral conditions evolve and if a La Niña does develop (17% chance).
Furthermore, there are more factors to consider when it comes to a weather pattern and only time will tell if the weather does normalize over the local region and if we finally get significant rainfall.

What is clear is that higher than normal temperatures will remain for the rest of the year.