Good morning Bay Islands. Our satellite this morning looks very similar to yesterday, with mostly high cirrus clouds and a few popcorn clouds to our south at 7:30 p.m. Our forecast is dry through the weekend with typical easterly trade winds 15-20 mph and seas 3-4 feet. We had a question about El Nino’s effect on our weather,

This is a nice summary of the effects of El Nino (this year is supposed to be an especially strong one) on the Americas. You will note the higher latitudes (further north and south from the equator) should be wetter, while generally areas closer to the equator should be drier. You will also note that our area of the Caribbean is not in a marked circle for drier conditions. I have compared our rainfall totals with El Ninos (and La Ninas) and haven’t found any real pattern, so I don’t think we can say with certainty we will have a drier summer than normal. That said, one definite pattern that is good for us is a lower likelihood of hurricanes. Of course, that isn’t zero, so we still need to be aware, but strong El Ninos generally decrease Caribbean hurricanes.

We are in peak World Cup season, and nothing goes better with the taste of victory than a tender cut of meat from Carniceria Rosita in Coxen Hole or French Harbour.

Low tide is 4 p.m. Have a great Thursday!

For consistency’s sake, we will stick with Sandy Bay for our island rainfall for June, where they picked up 2.69 inches with rains the last week of the month breaking the drought and is similar to Guanaja’s total. The west side of Roatan generally got just under 2 inches, but West Bay (.33 of an inch) and Utila (.25) were the big losers.

Looking forward to July, on average, squalls increase during this month, giving us an average over 5 inches. Let’s hope we get it. We need it. The forecast looks a little rainier starting next week.

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Patric Lengacher, who captured this storm over Coxen Hole on June 20.

The storm we got yesterday morning brought over an inch of rain to Sandy Bay and around a half an inch to most west side locations, but sadly only about a quarter of an inch for West Bay, .04 for Guanaja and none for Utila. The forecast is also looking dry.

Our satellite at 6:45 a.m. shows mostly high, cirrus clouds giving us mostly sunny skies, though there are a few popcorn clouds south of Coxen Hole that may have a very small shower in them, so we can’t rule out someone seeing a quick shower, but it won’t amount to much. Our forecast overall is quite dry through the weekend. Starting Monday of next week we should see an increase in scattered overnight and morning showers. Winds will stay around 15-20 mph from the east and seas 3-4 feet.

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Low tide is 3:30 p.m. Have a great Wednesday!

Good morning Bay Islands. I don’t have to tell you we are seeing some beautiful rain over most of the island. Daniel Ebanks sent me this lightning bolt from 5 a.m. this morning at Mangrove Bight, Guanaja. We will see heavy rain lessen through the morning, and rain chances decrease as we move into the rest of the week.

Here is our satellite at 7:30 a.m. This is a strong storm cloud overhead and it isn’t moving much. Eastern Roatan has gotten between a quarter and half an inch and several locations in Sandy Bay have gotten well over an inch. This storm will slowly rain itself out through the morning and by afternoon we should have partly cloudy skies. We will have another decent shot at rain tonight, but after that things look drier Wednesday afternoon into the weekend.
Winds today will be from the east 10-15 mph during the day and seas 2-3 feet and 15-20 mph this evening and seas 3-4 feet. Tomorrow will start out quite calm, but winds during the day should get back to around 15 mph by afternoon.

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Low tide is 3 p.m. Have a great Tuesday!

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day is a drone shot from Rickard Cleanmountain, showing snorkelers on West Bay reef.
Many of us on the big island got up to around a tenth of an inch of rain around 4 a.m. One location on Utila got .01 around midnight, but most locations were dry. Guanaja also picked up .01. We have a good chance of rain this evening through the night, perhaps even more than we got this morning if we’re fortunate. Winds will be milder today, 10-15 mph from the east with seas 2-3 feet, getting up to 15-20 mph and 3 feet this evening. Daytime winds tomorrow will be around 15 mph and seas 3 feet.

Here’s the 6 a.m. satellite. There’s rain northwest of Sandy Bay, but it will probably stay out to sea, but I can’t rule out a shower this morning.

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Low tide is 4 p.m., just before the rise of the full moon. Have a great week!

Good morning Bay Islands. We have a few showers out there, around mid-island at 7:45 a.m. and moving east to west. Between yesterday evening and this morning, though yet again West Bay has mostly missed out and Utila seems to. have completely missed out. Perhaps these showers will pass by you this morning. After that we should clear out to partly cloudy skies. A chance of a shower returns Wednesday evening into Thursday morning and again Friday into the weekend, with perhaps a better chance at more significant rain, which we really need. East winds will remain brisk, except for Thursday, when they should calm to 10-15 mph with seas 2-3 feet.

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Lowest tide is 11:15 a.m. Have a great Tuesday!

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Peggy Kern at Ipanema in West End. After a quick splash of rain yesterday morning, we are back to hot, dry and windy conditions.

At 8:30 a.m. we have a few clouds over toward Utila with no rain and mostly sunny elsewhere. Our next small chance of rain is tomorrow morning. After that, there is another small chance Friday into the weekend. We will continue very windy from the east except for maybe Thursday, when winds will be more like 10 mph and seas 2-3 feet.

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Lowest tide is 1:30 p.m. Have a great week!

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day is raindrops in Megan Mitchell’s pool in Sandy Bay. Most of us across Roatan have received around a tenth of an inch of rain as of 7 a.m., but the big winner is Guanaja, where Lisa Garcia has received 1.36 inches, her first measurable rain in 62 DAYS! That is probably true for most of us.

Here is our satellite at 7 a.m. and you can see why Guanaja got most of the rain. Unfortunately, Utila has hardly gotten any (I found one location that got .01 last night). As is typical, this rain should decrease through the morning and we should have partly cloudy skies by afternoon.

This is a forecast of moisture in the atmosphere. Right now we are getting a wave of moisture (red) that has spurred these showers. Tomorrow the atmosphere will have more yellow (drier air) so the rain chance is very low. Tuesday morning we have another wave so we have another chance of a morning shower. This isn’t a pattern change, so we will be more dry than wet going forward. We will continue to have strong east winds and seas 3-5 feet.

We are in the midst of World Cup season and however your team is doing (can you believe the US is 2-0?) get great meats for a cookout celebration at Carniceria Rosita when they reopen tomorrow.

Lowest tide is 9:15 a.m. Have a great Sunday!

BTW, welcome to the longest day of the year, with 13 hours and 6 minutes of sun.

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Erin Edney in Guanaja and shows a diver swimming with a nurse shark. I love horrifying North Americans by telling them how much I love swimming with the sharks. Most people don’t realize how calm most sharks are. They are truly great creations.
Our weather continues to be hot, dry and windy. That won’t change anytime soon, so I want to talk about the coral the shark is swimming over.

This is a map showing the heat warning status at buoys in the southwest Caribbean. You will notice in shallower waters toward the west, one location is in Level 1 heat stress, which indicates the likelihood of active coral bleaching, and other locations are in a warning state. We are in a heat watch on the west side and still OK on the east side, likely due to somewhat cooler ocean current to the east. Our surface temperatures are around 84F (28.7C). We are still a bit under our historic max temperature around 85 and bleaching begins around 89 degrees. It is still worrisome this early in the season. Late July and early August are key periods for coral bleaching and our best hope for avoiding it is a mild, but rainy, tropical storm to churn the water and cool things down.

Coral bleaching is a concern, but right now the coral is live and vibrant and Jolly Roger Roatan will take you to the most spectacular locations around the island.

Low tide is 7:30 p.m. Have a great Friday!

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Bob Jacobs in Palmetto Bay.
It’s been plenty hot. The high at the airport yesterday 91 (33C) with a heat index of 110 (43C). Over the next few days there isn’t any relief in sight, with mostly sunny skies and very little to no chance for rain. This time of year there is hope of a return of some squalls

Here’s the US GFS forecast for the next two weeks. From now until about the 20th it keeps us dry. As we get toward the end of the month it’s trying to pull in more rain from the Caribbean, but I will warn that long range forecasts are not very reliable and there is nothing major that would change our weather pattern right now. The only thing cooling us off are our continuing strong easterly trade winds that also show no sign of calming.

I’ve received some inquiries about the cause of major floods in San Pedro Sula on June 12. Here is the satellite from that day, and you can indeed see a storm develop in the evening hours of that day. The highest rain reading I could find for that day was 2 inches (the airport south of the city reported no rain at all). But for the previous week, the city had been averaging about half an inch a day. We are in a low pressure system called the Central American Gyre that has been causing tropical storms on the Pacific side of Honduras and SPS has been picking up storms on the periphery. My guess is that those previous rains had cause drainage to be clogged with garbage and two, maybe three inches in places, was enough to cause severe flooding in areas of poor drainage.

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It’s new moon and low tides will be much lower than normal around 3 p.m. Have a great week!