Local meteorologists are making significant strides in predicting the likelihood of a storm impacting the country.
Director of Barbados Meteorological Services, Sabu Best, explained this while he warned that the country could once again expect another above-normal hurricane season.
“For 2025, the [Met Services] predicts that for this main development area from the West Coast of Africa including Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, there will be seven tropical storms, three of which will become hurricanes and one of which should become a major hurricane; essentially above average again,” Best said.
He made those comments yesterday during a press conference to launch the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season at the Department of Emergency Management, Warrens, St Michael.
Best said the average that we should see in that area is five storms, with an average of two hurricanes, and one major hurricane is one.
“In the Met Services’ 2024 prediction, we predicted seven tropical storms; four of which were to become hurricanes and two of which should’ve become major hurricanes. The actual season produced six tropical storms; three of which became hurricanes and two became major hurricanes.
“I’m saying this to show how pretty good our first prediction was last year,” Best said.
El Niño
He also cited international forecasts which address the wider Atlantic, including those from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which predicted that there could be between 13 to 19 named storms, of which six to ten could become hurricanes. Three to five could be major hurricanes of Category 3 (111 miles per hour).
Best explained that El Niño and high above-normal sea surface temperatures created the conditions for the storms.
El Niño is a recurring climate pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean where unusually warm surface temperatures develop.
The hottest temperature recorded in Barbados in 2023 was 34.2 degrees Celsius. This recordbreaking temperature was reached on September 30, 2023, at the Met Services’ Charnocks station in the south of the island, surpassing previous records including the 33.6° C set in October 1969 and the 33.1° C recorded
in September 2005 “We are in a neutral state of El Niño. It’s not full-blown, but neutral is still fairly conducive to tropical cyclone development.
“We all witnessed in 2023 record-breaking temperatures. We broke our record for highest temperatures recorded in Barbados in 2023 and 2024 was warm as well. This year doesn’t look so bad compared to the last two years, but it’s still considerably warmer so there is energy there,” Best added.
In the latest official forecast just released, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted that the 2025 storm season could have between 13 and 19 named storms, of which six to ten could be hurricanes and three to five of those could be major hurricanes of Category 3 (111 mph) or above.
Measures
Meantime, Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams, at the same press conference, said it was impossible to be fully prepared for a Category 5, but the Government had put measures in place to be as ready as possible.
“We are as ready as we can be at this time. Our hurricane preparedness meeting started probably in January or February. We’ve had two phone meetings of the big team which brings together all departments responsible for disaster management. That would be police, Barbados Defence Force, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Barbados Light & Power, telecoms, all utilities, Fire Service, everybody that plays a part in disaster management.
“We had phone meetings where persons had to report on their state of readiness and their state of readiness included certain details down to ‘Have you tested all your generators?’” He added: “Each year we are doing more than we did the year before and we’re preparing better than the year before. Are we ever going to be properly prepared for a Category 5 hurricane? No.
“The scale of destruction is unimaginable, but for all of the things we can control, we’ve been doing our best to deal with those and line those up before the start of the hurricane season,” Abrahams said.
(TG)
