Bad weather leads to flooding, power outages.

Communities across several parishes were left without electricity for several hours on Friday during bad weather that also caused flooding in some parts of the island.

While Barbados began to experience rainfall from overnight, flash flood conditions began just before noon and quickly developed into a severe thunderstorm, forcing local officials to issue a flash-flood warning and then a severe thunderstorm warning.

A severe thunderstorm warning is issued when significant lightning activity is expected in a short period of time – generally less than six hours – or is already occurring within the warning area.

This type of weather system is likely to result in power outages if lightning strikes power utility infrastructure. This was exactly the case across several communities in St Philip, St Thomas and St John.

The Barbados Light & Power Company Ltd. said it was aware that some of its customers were without power as a result of the weather system, but service was restored later in the night.

“Heavy to violent showers this afternoon resulted in 4 to 6 inches of rainfall accumulation across some sections of the island. An additional 1 to 2 inches of rainfall is likely during the early night,” the Met Office said in its flash-flood warning.

However, by 9:30 p.m. the Met Office had discontinued the warnings. (MM)