Radar part en route just weeks before storm season
(CNS): Just three weeks out from the start of what experts say is a difficult Atlantic hurricane season to predict, a part needed to restore service to the Kearney Gomez Doppler Radar is finally on its way to the Cayman Islands from the manufacturer in Germany. It is expected to arrive on-island later this month. The radar, which is not critical to storm forecasting but helps with providing local predictions, has been out of service for many weeks.
Not for the first time, the radar service went down in March after a hardware failure. Since then, the Cayman Islands National Weather Service (CINWS) has been working closely with the manufacturer to isolate the fault and determine a timeline for repairs. CINWS Director General John Tibbetts said the team was looking forward to installing the new part and restoring service as soon as possible.
“Although the Weather Service has access to other services and tools that enable our team to provide accurate forecasts, we know the radar service is important to many people in our community,” he said. “We will continue to make every effort to get it back up and running again.”
The weather radar helps CINWS monitor meteorological conditions as far as Jamaica and is helpful for providing small-scale predictions. For tracking storms further afield, the team uses the Cayman Islands Government’s GOES-R satellite system.
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Category: Science & Nature, Weather
Very good initiative
Good initiative
I don’t care whether they use it for forecasting. When it’s working, it’s extremely useful to me to be able to see whether zi’m going to get some rain from that little thunderstom to the east. Very useful for boaters also.
They used to ship wool from Australia to Liverpool in a fraction of the time it has taken to get this part. On sailing ships. A century ago.
🤣😂🤪
A century ago the material was at the dock ready to be shipped. This needs to be ordered, probably manufactured, then sent. I doubt this is a part that comes from bin 9, 3’rd shelf, 6 in inventory… Please come into the century, things have evolved from the 1900’s; some things take a second to procure, others a lot longer. That said, CIG Ministers are very negligent on minding their responsibilities. But, the highly educated electorate continually elects absolutely worthless politicians/paying them a ‘King’s Ransom’ – so who’s to blame?
You don’t know any of that. You don’t know what the part IS. For some reason its a secret.
I did include an allowance for raising the sheep, shearing it, delivering the bale to the dockside and waiting for the longshoremen to end their strike.
Let’s not loose sight of the FACT that this is a lot less about needing the RADAR for storm predictions and tracking and more about simply affording our farmers, a timely understanding of the days/weeks weather, or commuters planning a trip to town, or even planning events for outdoors. An civilized nation requires a working and effective weather station. The Weather Service and its team owe us an apology for the poorly job of keeping this ALIVE. thousands of people stand at roadside daily to get transport or buses to work and school and many use our weather app to gauge the next hour or two of weather. A farmer being able to reasonably count on rainfall in their part of the island, could save them using costly pipe borne water services and so much more.
Step up Weather team or step aside…. we are fed-up !!
I’m glad that somebody else besides me sees that that the water being piped to our homes is extremely costly and in my estimation a ripoff and price gouging.
You literally pay 2 cents per gallon of piped water. Our water rates are quite reasonable.
Your other option is 100x the price which is $2.00 gallons imported in plastic.
I sincerely doubt commuters judge when they will use transit on the weather report. If they did, they are likewise worthless. GET to work on time; GET to school on time. If you delay your responsibilities due to getting W E T, oh my we are doomed. No wonder Cayman is such a mess. My pretty, you will dry out!
Did we get a lemon sure seems to be broken a lot
A competent worker never blames his tools.
the head tech manager is lost!!
Sounds like a joke. How many years does it take for Cayman to fix a radar system? Trick question. We don’t know because it’s never been done.
Given that this thing has about a 25% up time do we even need it?
Sounds a bit like my husband.
Utterly a waste f money to the public purse. 3/4 of the time the crap don’t work
True but we get another 25 Caymanians employed by CIG at inflated salaries who can continue their main businesses as well.
Emotional Damage!!!
For tracking storms further afield, the team uses the Cayman Islands Government’s GOES-R satellite system.
That must be the one launched from the McBeater Bush Space Port
Yeah, they just buy access to the data coming off the US satellites. Somehow that turns into “their” system. Typical.
Why not build in redundancy? Get another radar and use the existing one as a backup if and when it’s operational again.
Hey that’s a really good idea. Hmm … I wonder why they didn’t think of that before… Hey look It’s a great idea and I have thought about that myself before. HOWEVER, who’s gonna pay for it? Are you going to pay for it? It’s really expensive to have another Full Weather Doppler Radar site and it’s not just the Radar itself. it’s the building to house it, cost of operating it, cost for maintenance etc etc.
Again love the idea, biggest issue is where will the money come from to pay for it.
The 2% duty hike introduced in 2010 was supposed to cover residential garbage collection. Imports have skyrocketed since then but we will never know where the surplus went to will we? That surplus has been slushed in with other revenues but I’d bet my last shirt there’s enough to pay for another mosquito plane and another Doppler radar facility with change left over.
Hmm Maybe the money can come from all of the fees Government gets from the importation of vehicles and foreigners. Or maybe the politicians could each give 10% of their earnings towards their own country.
Every TV station in the US has doppler radar. It’s not a big deal to get.
“The radar, which is not critical to storm forecasting but helps”
Globally shared data is how we predict weather threats. By the time this radar sees a hurricane it would be way too late.
Really?
Having more than one central meteorological station helps too.
I want to see whether the eye wall is going to hit me personally. The radar is perfect for that.
CIG don’t do equipment redundancy but they do build copious amounts of redundancy into their slacker force.