With 47 days left before the end of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season that has seen the island untouched by any major system, Barbadians are being warned not to let their guards down.
The caution has come from meteorologist at the Barbados Meteorological Services (BMS) Tia Browne, who stressed that it would not take a hurricane to do significant damage to Barbados.
In an interview with Barbados TODAY, she said while it was difficult to say whether or not a system would develop, there was always the possibility one could form and threaten the island.
“We are still seeing the tropical waves and at any point you can see any of them developing late in the season, like has happened before with Tomas. We’re still in the hurricane season so we can’t rule out anything at the moment,” Browne said.
“Still be on your guard, even if it’s not a tropical storm or hurricane. We’ve had rainfall from tropical waves that would have generated a significant amount of flooding so it’s not going to necessarily take a storm, per se.”
Over the past few weeks, sections of the island have been flooded as a result of heavy rains. As recently as yesterday, heavy and persistent showers caused some areas in the north and south to flood out.
Browne explained that because the ground was still saturated from recent rainfall, it did not take much for more flooding to occur.
“What has been happening is that we have been having an upper level trough and it has been enhancing a lot of the activity we have been getting. The localised activity which has been generating, like yesterday [Wednesday], we would have had some showers in the south and the north and then we would have had the tropical wave,” she said.
“Early in October we would also have had some localised activity which would have produced some heavy showers and flooding in parts of St George, the Bridgetown areas, St John and also in the north. So, as we go into November we will continue to see a few of those features coming across which will maintain the possibility for some shower activity,” Browne added.
The meteorologist said because Barbados was in a La Nina event, it meant that approaching the end of the hurricane season and heading into the dry season, conditions were a lot more favourable for rain events. (RB)
