The ONLY local weather source for Roatan and the Bay Islands of HondurasRoatan and the Bay Islands of Honduras
Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Chantal Jaffré on West Bay. Today will continue windy, with east winds around 20 mph and 25-30 mph tonight. Seas southside will be 4 feet during the day and 6 feet at night. Winds will calm slightly tomorrow to 15 mph daytime and 20-25 mph nighttime, but the week will be windy and dry and hot. The high yesterday was 90 at the airport (32C). It will be similar today.
High and low tides will be mild. Have a great Tuesday!
Good morning Bay Islands. Someone recently asked for photos without sunsets, so today decided to go with Patti Yelinek’s photo. It should have a sunset in it over West End, but it was too smoky/dusty to see it. Send your photo, with or without a sunset, to bookmybio@gmail.com with name of photographer and location.
This morning we can actually see the smoke on satellite as a thin haze.
Not wanting to make you feel bad, but look at all the rain in the eastern Pacific over toward Panama. This rain seems mostly stationary and definitely not coming toward us. On the bright side, long-term forecasts are trying to give us at least a chance of showers 10 days out.
On this map you can see the dust. Right now we are stuck in the green, with moderate levels of Saharan dust. As we get toward Wednesday we start getting into the yellows with lighter dust and by Friday we see a few patches of white, which means blue sky (if we can get rid of the smoke).
The sargassum has gotten much better. On this map you can actually see that a small patch is supposed to pass by today, but not as big as last week’s and it should get better as the week goes on.
Here’s a little math for you. Carniceria Rosita meat + air fryer = heaven on earth.
Lowest tide is 8:30. Have a great week!
Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Keith Nelson in Sandy Bay and shows a red, dusty, smoky sunset. If you’d like to enter your photo for a chance at $50 in food and fun at Hangover Hut email your photo with name and location to bookmybio@gmail.com. Reallly quick forecast today because there’s not much to say. East winds will pick up this week to 20 mph and 3-4 foot seas southside during the day and 25-30 mph and 4-5 foot seas southside at night. Smoke and dusty haze continues with no rain in sight. Have a great Sunday.
Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Andrea DeMille and this spooky sunset was taken from the Thai Elephant in West End. Our smoke and dust is continuing to give us spooky skies. I feel like I’m living on Tatooine. Speaking of spooky skies, last night was the strongest aurora borealis events in 20 years.
Our satellite shows lots of high clouds and virtually no popcorns clouds at all. That adds up to hazy skies and no rain chances.
Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: Today we will continue to have 15 mph east winds during the day and 20 mph east winds at night. Seas will be 3-5 feet. Starting tomorrow east winds will be 20 mph during the day and 25-30 mph at night with seas 4-6 feet south side.
I found this from Rob Hoff on Twitter of the Northern Lights over Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. The farthest south I could find mention of the lights last night was Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is almost unheard of that the lights would be seen in Central America, but there is one recorded event, the Carrington Event in 1859, that recorded lights even as close to the equator as Colombia and caused telegraph machines to operate without their battery power. Nothing like that is expected, but the storm will continue through the weekend.
I found this map that uses satellite data to count individual fires. Notice how the number increases in central and eastern interior of Honduras. These are agricultural fires (I understand clearing sugar cane fields) that occur each April and May. This time of year is usually dry, but this year has been unusually dry, adding to the problem.
This forecast wind map for Monday shows the reason we are in so much smoke. Notice the winds coming from the south through the interior of the Mosquito Coast (to our southeast). This is where a lot of the agricultural fires are burning. Then the winds pick up and blow hard from the southeast over us. This next week looks to continue to be smoky and, unfortunately, might even get smokier. I’ve looked in past years weather forecasts and mentions of smoke tend to get less as we get into late May. Let’s hope so.
Treat mom (or anyone) to a choice between surf and turf or pork tenderloin in vodka watermelon (nothing to hate about that) tomorrow at Ikigai by Robby Molina in French Harbour.
Low tide is 6 p.m. Have a great weekend!
Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Larissa Johnson in Gibson Bight. I love the sun’s reflection off the calm waters. Waters are not this calm today, but they definitely are calmer on the north side than on the south side where we have 25 mph southeast winds and seas 4-5 feet.
Our haze is not just about the dust. There are high clouds moving from west to east. Lower down in the atmosphere we have some popcorn clouds scattered about. It wouldn’t be impossible for someone to see a sprinkle somewhere this morning, but I don’t see any measured rain at any weather station on our islands.
I’ve been noticing that the GFS is trying to make a tropical storm in the Pacific south of Honduras and El Salvador. The Canadian model is also picking up on this. Again, no threat to us because whatever it is is moving west.
The bad news from the Saharan dust is that it looks like it will keep coming, keeping our skies hazy. In fact, it looks like it might get a little worse middle of next week.
As a preview of my upcoming video on our trip to Guanaja, I thought I’d post this video of the amazing Villa Caterina house where we stayed thanks to our amazing supporter Lisa Garcia and her husband Oscar. The house is available for rent and is also for sale. It’s right next to the Guanaja Beach Hotel in El Bight so there’s lots of great amenities nearby.
Lowest tide is 5 p.m. under a new moon. Have a great Friday!
Good smokey morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day is from Jeffrey Hill, taken from the top of the hill above Jonesville Point and Czech Village looking toward Oakridge and Calabash. I got a good view of this area from the sea side during my weekend trip to Guanaja. I’m working on a video of my experience I hope to have out this weekend.
The GFS weather model keeps wanting to turn the storms on the Pacific side of the mainland into a tropical storm, but the National Hurricane Center isn’t buying it. Even if this happens, it won’t help us since these storms are moving into west into the Pacific.
On our satellite we see that it isn’t just dust and smoke in the air. We also have actual clouds. There’s even some storms on the Pacific side of Honduras. Unfortunately, those are not moving north. Today and tomorrow we will be mostly cloudy in the mornings with some hazy sun in the afternoons. This weekend should be less cloudy.
Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We will continue to have east winds around 15 mph and seas 3 feet southside middays and gusting to 25 mph and 5 feet southside evenings.
We aren’t the only ones who are dry. The mainland, especially the western side, and Belize up into the Yucatan of Mexico is in exceptional drought. There isn’t much in the forecast that says this will change over the next week.
Smoke from fires can be seen in the darker shades here. Usually these are agricultural fires from farmers clearing land. Visibility at the airport is down to 5 kilometers and modified visual flight rules. Hopefully we don’t have a repeat of last year, when flights were diverted due to smoke.
Ikigai by Robby Molina is hosting a special Sunday Bruch for Mom this Sunday. Check it out, along with the dinner special the same day.
Lowest tide is 4 p.m. Have a great Thursday!
Good morning Bay Islands. This morning’s photo of the day comes from Louise Ciarleglio and shows some nice cumulus clouds near Gibson Bight. Unfortunately we don’t have too many cumulus clouds around today, just cirrus clouds and dusty haze. If you would like to enter a photo in the contest for $50 credit at Hangover Hut, send me a photo with name and location to bookmybio@gmail.com.
This morning’s satellite shows high clouds across our area. We will continue to have hazy skies and Saharan dust and smoke in the air. All that haze may be cooling us a couple of degrees. We briefly made it to 90 degrees at the airport yesterday, but most of the day we sat at 88 degrees. We will continue to be dry and hazy through the weekend.
Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We will continue to have daytime easterly winds around 15 mph and seas 3 feet on the southside. Starting tonight our east winds will be a little stronger at 20-25 mph.
At the beginning of each month, the Canadian weather bureau puts out a rainfall projection for the next 12 months. These long-range forecasts are always shots in the dark, but they try to show trends in weather. Their prediction for May is already pretty good. They predicted 1 to 2 inches below normal rainfall for us. That would mean we would get through May with around half an inch. Right now that sounds about right.
The June forecast is for 2 inches above average rainfall for June. If this holds true we would get 5 inches of rain in June.
The July forecast is for 1 to 2 inches above average rainfall. If this is true we could expect 6.5 to 7.5 inches of rain in July.
During our weekend trip to Guanaja we took some smoked pork chops from Carniceria Rosita. My wife, Mrs. Roatan Weather, is a pork connoisseur and she is now a big fan of these chops. They are precooked so all you have to do is microwave them and you have a ready made meal at a fraction of the cost of dining out.
Lowest tide is at 3 p.m. Have a great Wednesday!
Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day was taken by Loren White near Sundowner’s in West End. It was shot, well, right after the sun went down. I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that Saharan dust is on the way. The good news is that dust often makes for good sunrise and sunset photos.
Let’s start with the satellite around 6:30 a.m. We can see a few popcorn clouds to the east of Guanaja. They are heading northwest and look like they will miss us, but there may be a light morning shower or two in these clouds. We will continue to have VERY slight chances of rain each morning.
Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We wake up to east winds 20 mph and seas at 3 feet south side. Today and tomorrow we will continue to have winds mostly around 15 mph from the east daytime with 3 foot seas south side and 20 mph nighttime with 4 foot seas south side. Wednesday night things get a little winder with 25 mph winds and seas 4-5 feet south side.
Here’s the bad news about Saharan dust. It looks like it is coming starting Wednesday and setting in through the end of the week. At least we won’t have it as bad as the islands in the eastern Caribbean.
Mitch Cummins has come back from his tour of Mexico and Central America with some great ideas for Roatan Pets food. If you have a poochie, you owe to him/her and yourself to get in touch with him and see how he can tailor a recipe perfect for your good boy.
Low tide looks quite low around 1:30 p.m. Have a great week!
Good morning Bay Islands. Our super-cute photo of the day comes from Dee Martinez and features her grandson Ian running along the beach in West End. We may be tired of the dry conditions, but whenever people ask when to visit Roatan, May is one of the prime months I suggest. Brides are all the time trying to have beach weddings in December when there is a good chance they will be rained out. If anyone wants to have a beach wedding in early May I can almost guarantee you dry conditions.
On the satellite all of the popcorn clouds are well to our west. There are some high level cirrus clouds making the sky over Utila somewhat hazy. We will continue to have sunny, dry conditions. The airport got up to 90 degrees (32C).
Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We will continue to have east winds 15 mph during the day and 20 mph in the evening with 2-3 foot waves especially on the south side. The main change is that Wednesday and Thursday evening winds look a little stronger, to around 25 mph and seas to 4 feet. But not bad for this time of year on the seas mostly.
Today is a double treat at Ikigai by Robby Molina. We have the lobster special all day and Cinco de Mayo Mexican specialties at 6 p.m. See you there!
A couple of days ago the GFS was trying to push some moisture down into the Caribbean. This morning’s forecast pulls that away from us. They are forecasting the cold front to stall around the middle of Florida, as is common in mid-May. So for now things look dry as ever into mid-May. We’re just hoping for the return of some high level Caribbean moisture to bring back the morning showers. But that ain’t happening anytime soon.
Low tides are looking pretty low around 12:30 p.m. Have a great Sunday!
Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Melanie Wood at Parque Nacional Port Royal. She says there is a guide there every day except Wednesday, which I did not know. On this particular day she saw more clouds than we’ve been used to seeing around here. Our sunny days aren’t going to end anytime soon.
This is my view this morning in Guanaja. Based on the satellite image, I’m seeing more clouds here than the rest of the Bay Islands, where there’s hardly a cloud in the sky at 6:15 a.m. We will continue to have sunny skies and no chance of rain. Our winds continue from the east around 15 mph, though starting tonight we will start getting a little windier at night, around 20-22 mph. When I get back to Roatan I’ll be posting a video of my amazing voyage on the Galaxy Wave.
Things are busy over at Ikigai by Robby Molina. Tomorrow is Lobster Day all day and Cinco de Mayo will feature Mexican specialties for dinner. Melissa is already taking reservations for Mother’s Day as well.
Low tide is just before noon. Have a great weekend!
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