Confirmed: Elsa was a category one hurricane

The Director of Barbados Meteorological Services has confirmed that Hurricane Elsa did indeed meet the international meteorological standards required to qualify as a hurricane in this part of the world.

Sabu Best told journalists: “In our region, which is called Region 4 or the northwestern hemisphere, once there are maximum sustained winds of 74 miles per hour (mph) or greater for an average of one minute, that is hurricane force intensity.

“Now as we looked at our data, as we were watching our stations live as everything unfolded, we started to report tropical storm force winds around 6 a.m. at the airport and Charnocks on the morning of July 2, then approximately around 7:20 a.m. we started to report hurricane force sustained winds of 75 mph and that was actually a two-minute average. So Elsa was a Category One hurricane.”

Based on met office observations of wind speeds which were clocked at 82 mph around 7.30 a.m., the US National Hurricane Center in Miami declared Tropical Storm a category one hurricane in an update at 7.45 Friday morning.

Best’s comments at an afternoon press conference Tuesday afternoon came as his counterpart in Trinidad and Tobago, Ezekiel Sampson, finds himself in hot water over his denial that the cyclone was a category one hurricane based on his assessments.

When asked about the storm and the upgrade which saw a severe weather alert being issued for Trinidad and Tobago, Sampson reportedly said: “No, I don’t agree with that.”

He expressed disagreement with the decision on Elsa “becoming a hurricane”, claiming that while rainfall amounts were forecast to be between two 25 mm and 50 mm locally, the system didn’t have any moisture.

“I am not seeing that system surviving any further. By Saturday afternoon, we should be okay. We will see the rainfall diminishing into Saturday.”

The minimal sustained windspeed for a category one hurricane is 74 mph.   

Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales confirmed late on Friday that an investigation had been launched.

Gonzales acknowledged being concerned about the incident as he said: “The matter is very sensitive and concerning, especially given the importance of the Meteorological Services Division and the integrity of the information it has to provide to T&T and the region.”

Regarding the rainfall associated with the system, Best said: “Barbados recorded between four and seven inches of rainfall in different areas across the island. For example, some sections like the airport and Charnocks recorded about five inches of rainfall, but in higher elevations like St. Andrew, we actually got reports of seven inches of rainfall. Luckily, the rainfall rates were not too aggressive so we had very limited reports of flash flooding during the storm.”

Best added that the forecast of Elsa was a good one from a tracking perspective as well as in terms of its intensity.

He said: “In terms of intensity it was not very far off. We forecast it to pass with sustained winds of 60 mph, but instead it was 75 mph, which is only a difference of 15 mph. We also found there were fluctuations in its intensity which tends to happen with young developing cyclones and Elsa was quite small. We were anticipating decoupling of the centres of circulation and this happened intermittently.

“However, there were occasions when Elsa ‘brought herself back together’ and was able to maintain her intensity and grow more intense during the course of the night.” (DH)