October 23, 2025

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day is from Tricia Power of sunrise in West Bay.
We have quite a bit of rain around (almost an inch in West Bay as of 7 a.m.) that has nothing to do with Tropical Storm Melissa.

On satellite from 1-7 a.m. we see the clouds that have brought a lot of rain, especially to the west side and Utila. As of 7 a.m. the east side and Guanaja has gotten just a few hundredths of an inch, but that can change as there will be scattered showers around through the weekend. We still see another 3-4 inches possible over that time period, with plenty of clouds.
Winds this morning are from the northwest around 5 mph and seas about 1 foot north sided. We should see the winds stay mostly from the northwest and seas pick up to 2-3 feet as we get into the weekend.

If you get a little nervous about the weather on your trip to Roatan, check out the excursions at Jolly Roger Roatan They will find the calmest waters and make sure you get safely back to your destination on time.

You will notice from the big white circle that the NOAA NWS National Hurricane Center thinks Tropical Storm Melissa will drift west over the next few days, but after that they are unsure where it is heading. A few headlines:
It should EVENTUALLY head northeast sometime next week, but the closer it gets to us early next week, the wavier our seas will be (potentially 7-8 feet in a worst case scenario)
It may bring some fairly strong north winds (20-25 mph) and that may mean that the weekend of Nov. 1-2 will be quite fresh.

Melissa is quite weak right now. It is sheared, meaning the storm is not straight up and down. The top of the storm is about 100 miles to the west of the bottom of the storm, which is keeping it weak, probably less that 45 mph. That should change this weekend as upper level winds calm down and allow the storm to straighten up and strengthen, probably to a category 3 hurricane. The people who should be most concerned about this are the folks in Jamaica which is most likely to take a direct hit. But as you see in the GFS spaghetti map, there are a few models that show it coming closer to us. It is still quite unlikely the storm itself hits us, but the closer it comes, the windier and wavier we will get next week.

The Euro computer thinks this storm will move to the west of Jamaica, and that would give us 8 foot seas by Tuesday.

By contrast the GFS thinks the storm will have moved north by then, giving us tranquil seas next Tuesday.

Whatever happens, if this storm gets as strong as they think it will, it should bring us some northerly winds next week, and perhaps some cooler air for the following weekend, as this temperature anomaly map shows. It also shows a major norther coming in about two weeks with even cooler air. As always, we will keep an eye on it.