October 11, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Tim Blanton and shows sunrise at CocoView.
Over the next week we will see some peaks of sunshine but a lot more rain. On the bright side, we were only 84 degrees most of the day yesterday with dewpoints around 70. That is quite comfortable and those cooler conditions should accompany clouds and rain for the week ahead.

Let’s start with the radar this morning. There are showers to our west that are drifting southeast. As the day goes on we should see increasing showers and those showers will be off and on through the weekend and into next week. A cold front will stall to our north on Tuesday, pushing more moisture our way.

Here is the Euro forecast of rain for the next 10 days. It is forecasting 6 inches for the entire period. That is an average of about two thirds of an inch each day.

Here is the GFS for the same 10 days. It is forecasting 10 inches, and a lot of that is for the weekend of Oct. 18-20 when the GFS thinks a tropical system will move through.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We start the day with northwest winds 10-15 mph and seas 4 feet. We should start to see a calming trend in our seas, 3 foot seas tonight, 2-3 feet tomorrow and 1-2 feet Sunday. Winds will be 5-10 mph mostly from the west northwest.

High tides remain quite high. Have a great Friday!

October 10, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Glory Cone in Lucy Point and shows a thundershower a week ago over the mainland. Over the weekend and into next week we will see plenty of rain and perhaps a few thundershowers.
Don’t forget that the winner of photo of the month wins $50 in Café Rubio coffee. Send photos with name and location to bookmybio@gmail.com.

Yesterday we had a mid-morning shower good for about a half inch in several locations.
Our radar this morning shows scattered showers around under mostly cloudy skies. These showers are drifting southeast. We will keep rain chances around this morning, but things should get drier this afternoon. Enjoy it, because starting tomorrow, into the weekend and into next week we should see rain each day and/or night.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We wake up to northwest winds at 10 mph and seas 3 feet north and west. Winds will get calmer overnight but they will be back up to 10-15 mph tomorrow from the northwest with seas 3-4 feet. Sunday through Wednesday look quite calm. In the long-range forecast the GFS is trying to give us stormy, windy conditions for the weekend of Oct 19-20.

Take advantage of calm seas this weekend to make that trip to Guanaja you’ve always wanted to take and see the island that a lot of Roatanians miss out on. Buy your tickets at roatanferry.com.

Tides continue to be high. Have a great Thursday!

October 8, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. No photo of the day today because we are watching a lot of activity. Hurricane Milton is about 500 miles to our northwest, but it is packing a punch and pushing our winds from the west around 15-20 mph and seas north and west sides around 4 feet. We will continue to have those winds and seas through tomorrow. After that they should get calmer again.
As for rain, I think there is a pretty good chance for storms tonight as Milton drags a lot of moisture behind it as it rides a cold front. The cold front will not get this far south, but it will pull in a lot of moisture. We will have daytime rain chances around 40 percent and nighttime chances around 60 percent through Saturday.
Sunday through Tuesday look even rainier as we get a second cold front. All of this should cool our temperatures into the mid 80s for highs and upper 70s for lows.

This is the GFS forecast for moisture in the atmosphere. You can see our cold fronts are pushing a lot of moisture over us, giving us good chances of rain throughout the forecast. What is interesting here is you can see a forecast for a spinning system to emerge from the Mosquito Coast around the 18th or 19th.

This is the GFS vorticity forecast, which is like an Xray of the atmosphere. You can see the forecast for some sort of tropical system to emerge from all this moisture around 11 days from now. Eleven days is a long time and these forecasts are very unreliable that far out, but there is definitely the potential for a LOT of rain over the next two weeks and also the potential for some sort of storm to spin up during this time period. We’ll keep an eye on it.

Roatan Weather

I got an exciting message from Mitch Cummins over at Roatan Pets the other day. He is now cooking up two recipes of cat food — chicken and fish. Your feline friend will thank you for letting him sample it.

Low tides continue to be unusually high. Have a great Tuesday!

September 2024 rainfall

We are putting Sandy Bay’s 7.05 inches in the record books for September, which is 2.2 inches above average for September. With a rainy forecast for the next two weeks it looks like October will be a typically wet month to begin rainy season, which goes through January. On a side note, a lot of our weather stations have been acting up lately. Weather stations tend to have a short lifespan in our salty air, but sometimes the fix is just to change the batteries. Please know that we really appreciate all of our weather station owners and they provide a useful service in keeping our islands safe. Thanks so much for your efforts in keeping your stations up and running.

October 7, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Matt Harper and shows some cirrus clouds. These high, wispy clouds usually mean fair weather, but when there are a lot of them, it can mean a cold front is on the way. We are waiting for a cold front and also the effects of Hurricane Milton, which will bring us westerly winds and increased chances of rain. We’re also looking at a possible storm Sunday or Monday of next week.

Today we will have a nice day, with light and variable winds, fairly calm seas and mostly clear skies. Starting tonight we will have increased rain chances, around 70 percent each night, with west winds 15-20 mph and seas 3-4 feet especially north and west sides. We will have about a 40 percent chance of daytime showers Tuesday through Thursday.

After that our eyes turn to what will happen this weekend through Monday. The GFS is forecasting a storm to form over us Sunday into Monday that turns into another hurricane for Florida to worry about.

Roatan Weather

The Euro model doesn’t turn it into a hurricane, but still has a tropical wave giving us lots of rain this weekend into Monday. We’ll keep an eye on it.

want to take a moment to note all the good work that Roatan Operation Animal Rescue does on the island for the underserved pets of our communities.

If you, like me, have seen an animal that you had to turn your eyes away from because it was in such bad shape, please know that Roatan Operation Animal Rescue deals with these pets on a daily basis. Please consider making a small contribution to help close the funding gap for these furry friends. Also consider purchasing Roatan Pets food, which donates 10 percent of proceeds.

Tides continue to be mild. Have a great week!


October 5, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Cesar Gonzalez Sr. and shows sunrise as seen from Pristine Bay looking east.
We had a storm around 1:30 a.m. that gave most of us a good soaking. We are steadying ourselves after an earthquake and looking forward to cooler temps from a norther.

Here are the rainfall totals overnight.

Here is the storm that blew up over us just after midnight last night. We have another storm off the coast of Belize that is trying to move south but is weakening as the morning goes along. We will have a small chance of a morning thundershower, but I think this will weaken before it gets here. We will continue to have overnight chances of rain until Wednesday when our norther gets here and gives us a greater chance of rain even during the day.

Here is the location of our earthquake that occurred at 10:39 last night. It was a 4.1 and was centered in the normal spot, north of Guanaja.

Wind and Galaxy wave forecast: We are experiencing some westerly winds around 10 mph this morning that are giving us some 2 foot seas, especially north and west. Those should calm during the day and we will return to light and variable winds and 1 foot seas. Those will last until our norther gets here Wednesday and we get west winds at 15 mph and seas 3 feet north and west.

We have had an unusually long period of tides that are quite high and don’t change much. Have a great weekend!

October 4, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Matt Harper in Saint Helene looking over toward the mainland. Often we get a clear morning after a rainy night. Last night around 10 p.m. many of us caught a thundershower that gave us around a tenth of an inch. This morning things are fair and hot. A cold front middle of next week promises to cool us down a couple of degrees.

On satellite this morning we can see the tropical disturbance closing in on Cancun and Cozumel, Mexico. It may cause a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico early next week but will be no concern to us. We will actually have decreasing chances of rain overnights Sunday into Monday, maybe 20 percent. Tuesday we will start to see our winds turn to the west and Wednesday we will have west winds around 20 mph, seas of 3 feet north and west sides and good chances of rain even during the day as a cold front nears.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast. We will continue to have calm winds and seas through the weekend before winds start turning west on Tuesday and Wednesday will be a little windy and wavy from the west. Those conditions should last through Friday. Wednesday through Friday we should see our temperatures get knocked down from around 90 during the day to around 85. It will be a welcome cool down.

Roatan Weather

Carniceria Rosita will be open normal hours for the last day of the Morizanic holiday and ready to take your orders on WhatsApp for quick pickup.

We are entering new moon phase. Have a great Friday!


October 1, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands and welcome to October. Our first photo of the day for this month comes from Phil Sikora and shows what I call popcorn clouds. They are actually low level cumulus clouds that can bring quick showers to our islands. This photo is the first to be eligible for the October contest. The prize is $50 in merchandise from Café Rubio Roatan. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite September photo for two free snorkels or dives at Scuba Roatan.

Here is this morning’s 8 a.m. satellite. You can see some popcorn clouds to our southeast. They aren’t moving a lot and bring a small chance of a passing morning shower, though most of us will stay dry. Last night we had some showers around 3 a.m. around Sandy Bay and an early morning shower in Utila good for a tenth to two tenths of an inch. We will continue to have about a 50 percent chance of rain, overnights and early mornings and most of our middays and afternoons will be partly cloudy.

Our forecast for a tropical wave from the National Hurricane Center hasn’t moved much the past few days. It still gives us a 40 percent chance of a tropical system over the next 7 days. The computers say a tropical wave will pass to our northeast, probably Friday or Saturday. It may not affect our chances of rain much because it will be fairly weak.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: This is a great time to visit the islands if you want to go boating, snorkeling or diving. The forecast for the next week is light and variable winds and seas 1-2 feet.
It will be a great week to head out on the ferry to visit Roatan, Guanaja, Utila or the mainland on the Galaxy Wave.

Tides continue mild. Have a great Tuesday!

September 30, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. Our last photo of the day for September comes from Fiona Barnett in West Bay. The five most liked photos will compete tomorrow for two free dives or snorkels at Scuba Roatan.
The photo shows a cumulus cloud, probably creating some rain near the coast, being sheared to the northeast by upper level winds. This is the kind of shear that limits the strength of a storm and sometimes the strength of a tropical system.

The satellite in the Western Hemisphere is not working properly, so we will go to the radar, where we see a disturbance off to our north causing rain on the coast of Yucatan and more storms brewing off the Mosquito Coast. This morning around 1:30 the Sandy Bay area had about a quarter of an inch of rain. We will continue to have about a 30 percent chance of a daytime shower and a 50 percent chance of an overnight or early morning shower much of this week, but perhaps a little better chance as we get toward the end of the week as the tropical wave passes to our northeast.

This morning our chance of a tropical system forming near us is down to 40 percent over the next two days. This system continues to look less dangerous than Helene was last week.

In the water vapor forecast you can see the two tropical waves with a little purple in them passing us this week, but toward the end of next week we see our first major North American cold front. On the island we call these “northers”. This one will probably die before it gets here, but they often cause more rain, turn the winds to the northwest and cool us down a few degrees. We will watch to see how strong this will be, but likely it will only mean a slight increase in rain chances the end of next week, but it is a reminder of the rainy season to come.

Give your island pets a special treat on a special week by ordering up a special recipe of locally sourced, freshly made food at Roatan Pets.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We will have light and variable winds and seas around 1 foot this week. Enjoy!

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We will have light and variable winds and seas around 1 foot this week. Enjoy!

September 28, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Crystal Johnson and is a place near and dear to my heart, the Mangrove Tunnel in Jonesville Point. If you haven’t taken the boat ride here and perhaps jumped in for a swim in the swimming hole at the other end, you really haven’t yet experienced Roatan!
We’re still watching the possibility of a tropical wave Monday through Wednesday.

For once we had a fairly quiet night last night. Some storms fired up to the west of Utila, but neither of our Utila stations recorded rain overnight.
We will continue to have decent chances of rain overnights and early mornings through the weekend. Starting Monday we’ll be watching for the tropical wave.

This morning we have a 40 percent chance of tropical development next week. The focal point is to our east, but we should see an increase in showers early next week, much like we saw with Helene when it was forming over our heads, so during the day on Monday through Wednesday we’ll see good rain chances, in addition to our normal overnight rains.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: This morning the big island is getting east winds around 10 mph and seas around 2 feet, but Utila is getting light west winds. Our winds continue to be quite light and seas fairly calm and that will continue into early next week. As always, watch out for winds and waves in squalls.

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Tides continue to be high. Have a great weekend and, if you follow American College Football: GO DAWGS!