Met office to deploy vehicles to help improve forecasting

The Barbados Meteorological Services (BMS) plans to deploy unmanned surface vehicles on the island’s waters to help improve its forecasting, particularly when it comes to tropical waves.
Director Sabu Best made the disclosure to members of the media on Thursday, World Meteorological Day 2023, during an open day at the BMS’ Charnocks, Christ Church office.
He said the four surface vehicles will be placed at strategic points in the ocean surrounding the island and will be controlled remotely from the BMS office.
“This is really exciting because almost every single year there is what we call a ‘troublesome tropical wave or weak depression or system’ that wants to show potential to develop and it is so troublesome that it is showing one foot in, one foot out.
“These platforms are going to provide information about these systems in terms of wind speed, direction, temperature, that we will feed processes like North American models and even back to the National Hurricane Centre. This is going to be really exciting, but it also puts us into the real technological 21st century,” Best said.
He added that the department is also exploring the option of adding high-endurance drones to its platform. The BMS director said that may not happen until later this year or early 2024, but the plan is to fly the drones into difficult weather systems to gather pertinent information.
“Last year, there was another instance where this strong wind, heavy rain feature occurred again, but not over Barbados; it passed just south of us and actually affected Grenada. We are seeing these things recur a little more frequently than in the past and that is concerning,” Best said.
“They [the systems] are very small. They give you very little lead time. You are not going to get days or lots of hours of lead time on these systems. You get one to six hours and when that happens in the middle of the night and most people are asleep, that is trouble.
“So we will fly the drones into these systems to actually do surveillance, gather data to feed the same numerical model and also to support the National Hurricane Centre in their reconnaissance flights. That will make a big difference in our ability to predict, especially these really weak systems that show there is potential, or perhaps another freak storm. It will actually provide really good data,” the BMS director added.
Best said the BMS will continue to find ways to improve alerting people about the potential impact of systems.
“But that calls for a delicate balance…. You don’t want to over-warn because then it goes as background noise and there is complacency,” he said.
The Met Office is responsible for monitoring and forecasting weather patterns across Barbados, as well as any severe weather events that might affect the island.
It is also tasked with medium-term forecasting for drought and rainy conditions over a three-month period.
Senior Meteorologist Semelke Jackman explained that the BMS decided to host the open day on World Meteorological Day – which has as its theme this year, Future of Weather Climate and Water Across All Generations – to showcase the services offered at the Met Office.
She said the BMS partnered with the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) to show students from schools within the vicinity of the office the link between meteorology and water.
“Most of our forecasts are done in an impact-based forecast format where we not just tell you about what the weather will be but what it will do and how it would affect you and how you should prepare and what you should do in the event of any particular weather event, which could include excessive rainfall or lack of rainfall,” Jackman explained.
“It could also include impacts by dust haze and we know about volcanic eruption and how that impacts us. We also do forecasts for the marine and the sea conditions across the island and we are part of the tsunami warning for Barbados.”
(AH)