Radar under repair as Atlantic brews new storms
(CNS): An assessment of the work needed to repair the dome of the Kearney Gomez Doppler Weather Radar, which was damaged last year, is underway, which has partially shut down the weather system, officials have said. Images will be available overnight but the radar will be offline during the daytime, just as the Atlantic begins brewing, a quartet of tropical systems.
One of the weather systems currently forming is a trough of low pressure over the northwestern Caribbean Sea close to the Cayman Islands that has a 20% chance of becoming a storm by the weekend.
After a very quiet summer, the National Hurricane Centre is now monitoring four different systems. In addition to the low-pressure system to the south of Cayman, a broad area of low pressure over the central tropical Atlantic is producing a large area of disorganised cloudiness and showers moving west, which forecasters say has an 80% chance of formation by the end of the week.
The radar and dome were damaged one year ago during Tropical Storm Grace, and officials are now in the process of determining an estimated completion date for the repairs, just as the hurricane season moves into its busiest period.
Officials said in a press release that more information on the repairs will be provided once the assessment is complete. This will include the estimated completion date and how these works will aim to minimise the risk that future severe weather events will damage the radar,
The weather radar went offline last year due to a combination of issues related to the backup generator, the damaged dome, and a failed radar part. The backup generator service was restored in June 2022 and the radar was repaired in July 2022.
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Category: Science & Nature, Weather
when it is up…why can’t they put the radar image times in local time?
nothing makes sense in cayman.
Absurdistan in its purest form.
A staff of 16 at the National Weather Service (according to their website). Couldn’t we just spot them around the islands to look for clouds coming?
Like the trained weather spotters in the states?
Come now. Stop making sense. You forget where you are.
That’s a good one 🙂
we are just lucky it is a white elephant anyway…. that does little to offer any useful information when a storm is coming.
the information is already available from many other sources.
I find it useful to be able to see the rain coming my way. Looking at cloud tops by satellite is not the same.
Exactly. The radar is useful because the cayman weather service forecasts are so useless. They look out of the window and that will be the weather for tomorrow as well. With the radar we can see what is coming for ourselves. Totally pathetic that it’s unavailable.
The forecasts are a joke. The U.S. NWS and NHC both use percentages as chances of rain and storms.
Here, it is either likely scattered or widespread with an unreliable radar system
Why is it taking so long to get it fixed? Shameful!
With respect to tropical cyclones, you are correct in that it offers no benefit given satellite coverage.
The radar is useful for boaters who might need micro-information on impending rain/lightning storms. And maybe some limited value to aircraft.
But for tropical cyclones, of not value as satellite tracking can show exactly where a storm is (which is on a much bigger scale than micro radar).
Even a phone book is useless if you don’t know how to read it Bobo.
It’s very useful to determine how long it’s going to rain in a certain area and plan accordingly.
Once again no accountability in the civil service. This reminds me of the CCTV fiasco.
Someone is getting a promotion.
How long does it take to fix the radar. Ita been over 2 years. Disgraceful
Big shoutout to the world class NWS for the non operational radar today! Got caught in a horrible thunderstorm along with many others with no warning.
Inexcusable to have not made these repairs BEFORE HURRICANE SEASON.
Yes! Because there are only thunderstorms during hurricane season. SMH. This is a ‘local utility’ story NOT a hurricane season story.
it reminds me of waking up every morning in the cayman islands.
groundhog day in a place where little makes sense concerning governance and the civil service.
Stick your head out the window if you need to see the weather
Watch the crabs and snakes if you’re wondering about storms or earthquakes (they try to come inside)
That’s it
LOL! So sad because you are correct. Gee… let’s install multi-million dollar systems to see what the crabs on the road already know!
Or.. you could just go online and get a 7 day forecast, using all the sources that Cayman Met does lol.
For some of the commenters who may have just woken up – the radar was off-line for most of last year’s hurricane season too! No concerns then?
Today’s forecast is for a 20% chance of repair in time for the 2023 hurricane season to knock it out again. I am however eternally grateful to our “officials” that if I get up at 2.30am tomorrow morning, I should be able to get a radar image of something?.
Nothing significant around us so no reason to think the radar is actually needed for hurricane monitoring at this time. That there are areas of disturbed weather possible in the middle of the Atlantic really not an issue our radar can help meteorologists with. And the patch by Central America similarly doesn’t really need our radar to track it. If it defied predictions and turned into a hurricane tomorrow they just don’t turn the radar off to check the roof leak. That the radar is back down during the day is annoying, but this is not a hurricane story.
have you forgotten the surprise Grace delivered? We need all the information we can get.
No, I have not forgotten Grace. Grace hit us with the strength of a top level tropical storm, i.e., practically a Cat1 hurricane. What many of us had forgotten because it had been so long since one of them (thankfully) and failed to take note of from other places is that a tropical storm is still a storm and can do significant impact. Its practically the Saffir-Simpson definition: will knock down tees which could damage buildings and take out power lines. But the point remains that, with no storm actually pointing towards us this is not a hurricane story. Especially since, if there were a storm suddenly to appear on satellite barreling towards us they could just turn the radar on (as they do at night when no one is working on the roof). Yes I miss the radar for when I’m going boating but its not a hurricane story.
Honestly, does anyone in charge have a brain cell they can all share?
Because there is no accountability in the civil service, efficiency and sense of duty are not required.
All that is required is to attend meetings which will generate minutes for distribution and filing.
The ones that do don’t last long
Par for the course … when we need it the most; its DOWN!
There isn’t a soul in Cayman that I’ve ever spoke to that felt the current weather service administration team was worth its weight in salt. Utterly disappointing that repairs are planned precisely at the peak of the hurricane season.
Am I missing something here? They wait until we’re knuckle deep into Hurricane season to take our radar offline to repair it when it was damaged a year ago?!
It’s like when they decided to rip up Cardinal Avenue right when the cruise ships returned.
This place is nuts.
The one season of the year we can’t afford to have it not working… SMH
If the system cant hold up under a TS what was the point? Will we need to repair it every year?
another glorious day for the civil service….
Yup. World class for incompetency.
More importantly is we’re we lied to at the last report when it was fixed that further repairs were needed but only to a leaking roof and to put a dehumidifier in place ?
Really trying hard to keep the faith
Clearly if they can turn it back on at night when no one is working on the roof then no, we were not lied to. The radar itself is working, but there is roof work that needs to be done. Just like they said.
#worldclass