Barbadians should be seeing some rough seas, with swells up to 11 feet (3.5 metres) high this weekend.
And the Barbados Meteorological Office has warned sea-bathers and operators of small fishing boats and pleasure craft to keep out of the water.
“Small craft operators are advised to exercise extreme caution or avoid navigating in these conditions,” the Met Office said in a bulletin issued yesterday.
“Sea bathers and residents along these [targeted] coastal areas should stay away from the beaches. All concerned should take the necessary precautions.”
Acting director of the Met Office, Sonia Nurse, told the WEEKEND NATION the swells were expected to impact the northern, eastern and western sections of the coast from tomorrow until Monday.
The forecast of rough seas is linked to a low pressure centre over the northwestern Atlantic.
The northerly swells being generated by the system of bad weather have been moving southward over the past few days and will soon begin impacting Barbados, according to Nurse.
“We’re going into the North Atlantic winter time pattern, where you would see these large swells being generated over the western Atlantic and being propagated southward across the area,” she explained.
“It may have started a little early, because you would more likely see it towards the end of November, going into December and then at the start of the next year.”
Nurse said the other elementsof the weather system, including high winds, were not likely to affect Barbados.
“The low isn’t going to affect us directly; that activity will remain over the open waters of the Atlantic, well to the north of us,” she commented.
“It’s just that the waves are going to be pushed into our area because high pressure is going to build behind the low pressure system.
“So with the combination of the wind between the high and the low, you get very strong winds being generated and those winds tend to push the waves, the swells, into the [region].” (TY)
