2019 a hot, dry year for Cayman
(CNS): As scientists around the world release their weather measurements for 2019, showing that last year was the second hottest year on record for the planet and ending the hottest driest decade ever recorded, local weather experts have also confirmed that it was also dry and hot in Cayman. Although the year started with the second wettest January on record, as the year went along it became increasingly dry and temperatures soared.
According to information released by the Cayman Islands National Weather Service, throughout the year temperatures were running at around 2°F higher than the 30-year mean. The experts also revealed that just over 47 inches of rain fell during 2019, around nine inches below the 30 year average rainfall of just over 56 inches.
January and February, generally the two driest months in the year, were both wetter than the historic average but the additional 4.7 inches above the mean levels that fell in both months was wiped out by a very dry second half of the year. From July until December rainfall was down on the historic average by around 17 inches.
September was especially dry. The total rain accumulation for the month was just 1.83 inches, almost 7 inches below the 30-year average for September.
August was the hottest month, recording an average temperature of around 87°F, which was more than 2°F higher than average, while January was the coolest, with a monthly average of about 79.5°F, a degree and half hotter that the mean for January.
The details of Cayman’s annual weather review come against the backdrop of global figures that show last year was the world’s second hottest since records began and the hottest for the Northern Hemisphere.
In line with Cayman’s own records, August 2019 was the second hottest August on record during the hottest summer in the northern part of the planet, tied with 2016. The average global temperature in August was 1.66°F above the 20th century average of 60.1°F, tying it with 2015 and 2017 as the second hottest August in the 140-year record, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. The global sea surface temperature for August was also the hottest on record.
With the hottest decade on record now behind us, the future however looks just as hot and dry across the world and here in the Caribbean region.
The latest drought warning from the Barbados-based Caribbean Institute for Meteorology suggests that 2020 will be another dry year. Cayman is on the list of countries the forecasters are warning about where long term drought is evolving. While Cayman depends largely on desalination for its fresh water supply, rainfall remains an important factor for farmers.
Moreover, desalination is costly and energy intensive, and as Cayman becomes increasingly dry, the need for more water to be made through reverse osmosis will also impact the government’s targets for reducing its carbon footprint.
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Category: Climate Change, Science & Nature, Weather
There are 4 subjects on which people would never agree: religion, politics, vaccinations and climate change.
Vaccinomics and pharmacogenetics explain why people react differently to drugs and vaccines. But frankly, this is common sense: one size don’t fit all.
Climate change/global warming-we live in era of fake news and “corporate science”. People trust no one. People also have only 5 very primitive senses, so if they can’t see something, touch, hear or smell it, they conclude it doesn’t exist.
Religion and politics – I won’t even start here. Nearly primary cause of all wars since eons.
So please use common sense before going for someone’s throat, figuratively speaking, if his/her opinion differs from yours.
That’s very measured and generous of you, but society doesn’t work that way. 40+ years of consensus from millions of career academics and scientists, from every concerned institution on the planet, accompanied by warehouses of geosynchronous satellite data, isn’t just some person’s “opinion” anymore. Similarly, arguing that “the planet is flat” is not really an opinion…at some point these soap box vocalizations cross over into clinical psychosis, and society rewards those who disassociate with crazy people.
You first since it’ll take you longer to retract from every coal/oil lobbyists rear before exciting your own.
CNS please fix this. It constantly happens that a comment I reply to goes as its own comment so it has no relevance whatsoever. I read other comments that obviously happened the same. I used to think it was just idiots who couldn’t respond to the actual comment itself but now I think it something weird with your comment section.
CNS: First of all, are you 100% sure that you replied to a comment? I had also assumed that it was a result of commenters’ errors. I had a quick look at discussions online about this problem and they are all about situations where this happens on every reply, not a now and again thing. I approve numerous comments every day that are replies, so I can’t see how it can be a coding issue, and if I can’t reproduce the problem, it’s hard to see the circumstances where it happens and therefore how to fix it. I’ll keep looking though.
I guess some people don’t care where they get their news, so long as they hear what they want to hear.
Prior to 2007 the Northwest Passage was unnavigable, even in the brief summer months, except with a powerful double-hulled ice breaker escort. Now there are sold-out fully-laden cruise ships sailing through, other commercial and recreational traffic, some of them fiberglass hulls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage
Commercial routes are expected to be open almost all year round by 2040 (just 20 years from now).
https://services-webdav.cbs.dk/doc/CBS.dk/Arctic%20Shipping%20-%20Commercial%20Opportunities%20and%20Challenges.pdf
Science doesn’t care what anyone’s “opinion” is, or whether someone “believes in” the hard data. Right now, there is so much commercial misinformation being pumped out that comfortable people can’t be bothered to whittle through to the truth, let alone take necessary personal steps. It is politically correct to ignore the data, and the people that read and understood it are labelled “climate activists”, “snowflakes”, “bleeding hearts”. Amazing times.
Hey 5:26! Here’s Greenland Live:
https://www.webkams.com/greenland/all-regions/angmassalik/19293
https://www.webkams.com/greenland/all-regions/nuuk/6371
Keep drinking the Kool-Aid! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
CNS: You’ve found snow in Greenland in January and think this disproves climate change. Your “points” are getting steadily more idiotic. Here’s NASA on the subject of Greenland’s ice melting..
3.26pm In answer to your final question the hottest average temperatures by far in the Caribbean are found in Haiti, which has been completely stripped of it’s woodlands
100% of Al Gore (that not even a single presiction) GROSSLY WRONG .
But to religious cultists, facts don’t matter
Interesting, 5:30, thanks.
Well, coming from the U.K. I love that warm sunshine on my bones. I am also an ex resident of Cayman where I worked and still enjoyed that glorious weather. You still get cool periods and rain that comes down so heavy it bounces off the roads and floods the place. I can assure you, if you had the rain that the U.K. constantly has you’d never complain again.
Do you even understand that climate change isn’t around to help warm your bones on holiday? It’s going to destroy the living population of earth. Please try to keep up.
Sadly, this is what science has been reduced to. Talking points, propaganda and indoctrination.
Prediction: 2020 will be the hottest year in record for “the planet”. Then 2021 will be the hottest year on records for “The planet”. Then 2022 will be the hottest year on records for “The planet”. Just like, 2010 was the hottest year on records, then 2011 was, the 2012 was… etc etc.. Meanwhile the ice caps have been growing and we have some of the coldest winters yet after we have been told the ice caps would be LONG GONE by now. but they’re not and doing just fine.
Will the climate be any different in 2024? No it won’t, just as it hasn’t been any significantly different for the last 1000 years. But the hysterics will be a lot louder.
What’s next?? The “scientists” will be telling us that biological men, are absolutely no different than biological women, and that gender is an optional social construct?…. Oh wait…..
so you believe in a conspiracy involving thousands of scientists, institutes, organisations, politicians….etc?????
get real.
Yes, they do. And so do many other very misinformed individuals. It’s quite sad considering they’re doing the dirty work of what the coal companies have been able to sell them. All while the coal companies make the money and these people still suffer and will end up dead due to climate change. What a time to be alive.
yep…they can’t even realise they are being used as pawns by the oil industry…..
Over 300 billion tax dollars spent on climate research grants in the USA alone some 2012. Get your head out of your ass
That’s not enough money! That’s less than half of the US military budget. Not to mention the fact that your comment leaves out all of the issues that are: oil companies are so far up politicians ass that nothings gonna be done until we rip those forkers out of the senate.
Right, because politicians amd organizations can never be corrupt.
No you’re not naive at all.
LOL! No such thing as corrupt politicians! GET REAL
12.19pm Go to Greenland and bury your head in the sand that was previously covered by ice and snow.
The destruction of vegetation, including particularly red mangroves, will reduce rainfall downwind. That is a long established fact, and is the main reason the rainfall in George Town is so much higher than in Bodden Town. Some of the reduction may well be due to climate change, but most is likely due to land clearing upwind from the monitoring stations. Learn Cayman, before it is too late.
I visited in November and the weather was truly unbearable . While I enjoy a sunny day, it felt like the sun was angry at everything and had intention of melting it all away.
Whats interesting is the lack of a waste facility and the incredible number of cars on the road.
I cant say for sure what effort will make a difference but the heat has become incredibly unbearable and uncomfortable.
You sound like a total whimp. I bet you complain that it’s too cold in your home country too.
Yes it can be a bit cold at times just as Cayman can be too hot – a personal measure that lends itself to the point of the article. Are you saying you have never realised the temperature on island ? I am just going to jot your mood down as a result of another oven hot day !
11:43 They teach in preschool that name calling is wrong.
definitely the hottest year i can remember…but get used to it, this is the new reality.
we have destroyed the planet…get used to hot summers, sargassum on our beaches and rising sea levels….
any comment jon-jon?????
I’ve owned a property by the sea for 50 plus years. The sea level is no different. I wonder if activists understand the difference between low and high tide? Where so the proof that the seas are rising in Cayman?
They aren’t rising in cayman…. yet. A quick Google will tell you what islands are disappearing and where sea level rising is affecting certain areas, it will hit us soon don’t you worry.
Yet? Soon?
Oh you deniers are so witty
You don’t have facts?
Why must I supply you with the facts that are so easily and readily available online. Quit being so lazy.
Obviously connected ocean waters are still very slowly rising everywhere more or less to the same degree and at the same time, not just in certain specific areas of interest.
For instance, in Miami, the 5.9″ localized “sea level rise” since 1996 is attributed to severe land subsidence from heavy condo tower density on reclaimed swamp, where the city is only a foot or two above sea level anyway. This is partly bad engineering/planning permission, and a small part miniscule sea level rise and routine king tide anomalies backing up sewers.
Passing off “land subsidence” problems as localized “sea level rise”, is lazy journalism, and risks eroding credibility of the bigger longterm global problem, which is real.
you need proof?..maybe ask why miami has being dealing with this issue for 30 years….?
Why has Miami been dealing with this issue for 30 years?
Yeah Bobo, Has already hit Key West and Miami so will be coming to your neighborhood soon.
And Jesus too.
West Bay will welcome him.
Not just West Bay. I would too.
Hope he does not go to Hell in West Bay. West Bayers might be ashamed.
Perhaps one shouldn’t build in low lying areas. Old time Caymanians knew not to build by the sea, but today’s geniuses build by the sea and then blame the sea for flooding.
Mean average sea levels are up about 1 inch in last 100 years, outside of the solar maximums that produced previous sea level changes in the geological record – ie. this is human influenced warming. That may not be perceptible to the recreational viewer, but the science doesn’t care. When we exceed the point of no return, and deny all the way past the tipping points that are coming – such as the global population doubling to 16Bln in the next 20 years, the depletion of modern fisheries, the end of anti-biotics, and the shortage of clean drinking water. The environmental runaway feed-back loop that will melt ice logarithmically and drastically change the coastlines, will begin to become visually perceptible in next 50 years. The 2 degree 2100 Paris Accord target probably won’t be met or stop anything. It’s easy not to care because few of us will be alive then. But for those that are thinking ahead, or have kids, what humanity collectively decides to do about what we can control NOW, will and does matter. We have to be looking ahead hundreds of years into the future as humanity used to do when endeavouring to build great lasting monuments.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials
The Mean High Water Mark was changed from +0.45′ (established February 1992) to +1.00′ January 2017 – that’s a rise of 0.55′ in 25 years.
Thank you. I can now sleep at night.
I wonder how and where rainfall in Grand Cayman is measured. The difference between the number of times and the amount it rains in, for example George Town and in Bodden Town is very considerable.
The numbers provided by the National Weather Service are measured at the Owen Roberts International Airport and yes we know there are rainfall differences across the islands. Plans are in place to increase the number of observing by installing automatic weather stations in every district as well as both Sister islands.
I wonder if the increase in temperatures is recorded of the air temperature at the coastline or recorded near to all the concrete buildings, paved roads and carparks, and accordingly influenced by those plus the a/c exhaust and traffic. I.e. how much is climate change and how much is due to development in that area.
Thanks John. I think even you as an expert will be surprised at how the rain tails off from heavy heavy downpour at the airport and as far as Lantern Point to drizzle by Ocean Club/Spotts to dry as pitch in Savannah and points East. I have lived in the eastern districts for 40+ years and last year was the driest I have ever seen. In such a small island the rainfall pattern is extraordinary. Is cutting down vegetation to blame?
Yes.