Weather service warns of hot, wet summer on GCM
(CNS): After a very dry start to 2024, the Cayman Islands National Weather Service is predicting a hot, wet summer on Grand Cayman, with 50-59% above the annual rainfall averages between now and the end of July. The CINWS says it will then get even wetter for the remainder of the rainy season, with predictions of 79% more rain than the average. Given the low levels of precipitation since the start of the year, weather experts are warning of an increase in flooding through the summer and into the autumn.
March, usually Cayman’s driest month, was particularly dry this year. According to the CINWS statistics, just 15.4mm of rain fell on Grand Cayman during the month, around half the annual average of 29.7mm.
But experts say the forecasted transition from the current El Niño to a neutral phase before a further transition to La Niña will increase the chances of heavier more frequent rain for the next six months. It will also herald in much warmer temperatures than average. The CINWS is predicting much higher temperatures than average with a moderate heatwave during the summer months.
West Bay has had much less rain than other parts of Grand Cayman, which the CINWS says is largely due to localized rain in the last few weeks that has passed the district by. However, residents can expect the upcoming season to be much wetter.
“Precipitation is usually expected to not only be due to localized convection but may additionally be associated with other dynamical situations and tropical systems, tropical waves, tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes that can produce island-wide precipitation. Therefore, West Bay should also experience an increase in rainfall as we enter the wet season,” a spokesperson told CNS.
See the notice from the CINWS below and see today’s forecast here.
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Category: Science & Nature, Weather
sounds sexy
It is going to be wet and warm in the tropics? Nooooooooooooo
Sorry CNS, you are interpreting some things wrong. When they say “80% above average” they mean the probability of rainfall being above average is 80%, not that rainfall is predicted to be 80% higher.
Same with temperature. 80% above average doesnt mean temperatures will be 162 degrees Fahrenheit (90 X 1.8)! Just means it is 80% likely that temps will be above average.
But that won’t work, it doesn’t sound as scary.
5 out of 4 people are not good at math
Start stocking up for hurricane season folks its gonna be bumpy
Why does it always rain on me?
Because you lied when you were 17…..silly.
I hope someone at MRCU reads this article.
They’ve had the last 6 months to prepare.
Hopefully by now they have two planes operational and two pilots to fly them.
…. and when will the weather radar be available?
The radar whiners…you know the only incremental benefit of radar to (which just provides a precise indication as to where convection is) is to assist in aircraft landings and departures. Most commercial aircraft have onboard radar systems anyway.
For weather forecasting, including tropical activity, and the general population, satellite images provide all the needed information. (We arent at risk of tornados, an area that radar precision is needed).
What will radar provide you that satellite images wont?
Well, following that logic, why does CIG have any equipment at all if it’s fine just to let it all fall apart?
This is the same mentality that results in the old Glass House being shuttered and left to rot away on prime useable land in the middle of the capital.
For $179 the government could have purchased one of those weather stations off Amazon and received good value for money. Instead we paved good farm land to name a bubble off a civil servant that never works costing over $1M. What is the government really telling the people civil service/radar station “never work equipment” but keep throwing good money down the drain?
AI will do the job in a couple of years.
All we will need is a man and a dog.
The dog to guard the station and the man to feed the dog.
Except in the outer islands where we need a minimum of 6 to feed the dog
How much longer are we going to pay someone over $100,000 a year in salary to copy and paste from a report that NOAA sends to them?
A forecast anyone can download in 5 seconds from NOAA, CSU, Penn State, TSR ….
A lifetime, then full pension and health benefits.
Congrats to the NWS. They have been incredibly busy and installed a nice new set of signs for the Kearney Gomez Doppler Radar Facility.
That will hopefully help the repairman to find it. He’s been looking for it all year.
Kearny must hate the radar being named after him
We can blame Ju Ju for that
Kearney should be proud that they repaired the sign
When it starts raining, I will believe it.
What about the radar?
Hopefully a lot of rain, and resulting extended periods of cloud cover, will cool the sea in our area, diminishing the intensity of passing storms.
Quite the opposite . Rainfall associated with thunderstorm activity enhances tropical cyclones , it doesn’t minimize or inhibit the formation . Rainfall on the surface of the ocean does nothing to cool the ocean .A resource is to Look up ‘THCP’.
( Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential ).
They get that info from their radar?
Will they ever fixed the radar staion before JUne 1? We omeowner relay on this during hurricane season
What does 80% above average mean. As an example if the average temperature is 100 degrees, are they really saying it’s going to be 180 degrees?
Maths wasn’t your strong subject was it?
I think it means 80% of days will be above average. Just confusing wording.
No. It means it is 80% likely that average temps will be above average during this period. (CNS interpreted this incorrectly).
Thanks. May skip a summer trip if it is going to be more rain than sun. Had enough rainy weather where I am from, don’t need to spend $$$$ to go on holiday and sit in more rain.
I really like this ‘more information’ tack the NWS are on.
It can be improved by explaining what ‘85% above average temperature’ means? Is that like 87F instead of 83F on most days, or ‘85% change of the average being above average by some amount’? (So not something we can really prepare for other than that it will be some amount hotter.) Same with the rain predictions.
And same with ‘moderate heatwave potential’. Heatwave warnings – stay inside, cool & hydrated – I’m used to in other countries. Is CIG/NWS/HMCI going to start putting that out now? When it reaches a certain heat index? Some places even establish public cooling zones. Is CIG planning to do that? Or is this one of those warnings where you then have to figure out for yourself what it means, afterwards. (Some things may seem obvious, but like Nor’Westers and sublevel car parks perhaps only in retrospect to those of us who have not experienced them before.)
is the radar working yet?
So we can expect even more crashes and disruption on the roads, with our army of amazingly competent drivers?
Well it’s not from driving and looking at the radar
When will our weather radar be working again?