Good morning Bay Islands. I usually try not to use two photos from the same person in the same month, but I have to make an exception today, because Jeffrey Hill perfectly pictured what our last 24 hours have been like with rain — so close, yet so far away. This is taken from the top of Jonesville Point looking east toward Barbarat and shows a cumulus cloud, likely with a shower at its base.

The green arrow shows the cloud that Jeffrey captured, probably bringing a shower at 6:45 a.m. in the strait between Guanaja and Barbarat. The red arrow shows an even stronger storm to our north. These are sliding slowly to the south/southwest so there is a possibility some of us could see a morning shower. I hate to say it, but after this morning I believe our chances to get rain will start going down. We’ve had something like 40 percent chances of rain the last few days and going forward, especially Sunday into early next week, the chance will be more like 20 percent.

As proof that we had good showers around, notice how quickly the temperature fell at the airport around 2 p.m. (from 91 to 75 degrees) Clearly it either rained there or someplace very nearby. Unfortunately we don’t have a rain gauge anywhere near Coxen Hole to know for certain.

At around 4 p.m. we had two storms lined up to our east, moving west, and somehow they just died before they got here. That’s what our life has been like during this drought.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast. You have another day and a half to enjoy fairly calm seas on all sides of the islands. Winds this morning are around 5 mph from the northwest and seas 1-2 feet. Winds will swing around to the east this afternoon, but remain pretty calm. Those calm winds last through tomorrow morning, but starting tomorrow evening we get our strong east winds back for the weekend. Next week looks to be around 15-20 mph east winds.

Just another reminder that the day after tomorrow will be Roa Fest, sponsored by Galaxy Wave, a day long extravaganza of music, food and activities at Sol y Mar in Sandy Bay that will benefit the public hospital. Admittance is only 50 lempiras so go have fun!

Lowest tide will be at 10 a.m. Have a great Friday!

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Jeffrey Hill who captured these island black iguanas, also known as washy willies, in his yard above Jonesville Point. They were sunning themselves in the sun. Even though they are cold-blooded, I wonder if they ever get hot, because it was 93 degrees yesterday at the airport. We really hope to get some rain this evening and tomorrow morning.

On our close-up satellite we see a few clouds around, especially on the west side of Roatan and over Utila, but these are unlikely to hold any rain, except maybe that cloud just east of Guanaja. These are very slowly moving to the east.

This map shows the moisture overhead, and you can see what they call the Central American gyre (or Central American low pressure) spinning and slowly moving north. The computer models give us our best chance of rain this evening through tomorrow morning. Let’s hope it happens.

In the Atlantic, there is a disturbance that brought South Florida flooding rains yesterday. In the Bay of Campeche, the Central American low that is bringing us this chance of rain has a 40 percent chance of tropical development next week.

On the Pacific side of things, there is a low percentage chance that low pressure will create a tropical storm. In any case, the Pacific side of Honduras and El Salvador will get flooding rains the first of next week.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We wake up to very mild winds and seas around 2 feet this morning. Winds will remain light and variable today and tomorrow with seas 1-2 feet. Saturday and Sunday, winds will be brisker, 20 mph from the east during the day and 25 mph at night with seas 3-5 feet.

I wrote last week about how Ikigai by Robby Molina had the best Asian food around. But don’t sleep on their Mexican food either. These Two Amigo Fajitas were more than enough for lunch. I ended up taking half of them home and having dinner as well.

Lowest tide is 9:17 a.m. Have a great Thursday!

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Ariane Baltodano and I’m going to take a wild guess that it is from West End. We continue to have mostly clear skies with the hope of some rain Thursday night into Friday morning.

This morning we see a few showers north of Gracias a Dios Department on the Mosquito Coast. The storms are moving southwest very slowly and probably won’t make it here. But it is better than yesterday when we saw nothing on satellite. Our rain chances will increase into the weekend. It’s not a guarantee that we will see rain, but Thursday evening through Saturday morning we will have a 35 percent chance of rain. Let’s hope we get it, because Sunday into the first part of next week looks dry.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast. We wake up on the east side of the island to 20 mph southeast winds, the strongest we’ve felt in awhile, with 3 foot seas. As the day goes on, winds will become much lighter and they will be coming from various directions. The next two days we will have light winds and seas mostly 1-2 feet, but the easterly winds get stronger this weekend, up to 30 mph Saturday night and 20-25 mph through the day on Sunday.

Sunday is the big day for Roa Fest sponsored by Galaxy Wave and among the band lineup is Mid-life Paradise and Ley Seca, two bands that cover a lot of your rock n roll favorites in English and are guaranteed to bring back those memories of your misspent youth. Entry is only 50 lempira and it’s all happening at Sol Y Mar in Sandy Bay.

The difference between low and high tide won’t be much. Have a great Wednesday.

Good morning Bay Islands. This morning’s photo comes from Kristi Voves and shows sisters Gemma and Lake walking through baby mangroves on the beach at Blue Bahia Resort. I’ll be visiting Sandy Bay Divers, the sponsors of this month’s photo contest for a dive. Seas will be a little choppier than they have in recent days, but not too bad north side.

We start with the satellite and, unlike previous days, there isn’t any nearby rain to get jealous of. Today and tomorrow look mostly sunny and hot. The high at the airport yesterday was 93 (34C). Our sea temperature monitor is getting dangerously close to the bleaching threshold of 86 (30C). We really need some cooling rains. The computers are still wanting to give us better chances late this week into this weekend as the Central American low sits nearby. Let’s hope so.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: Here on the east side, we are a little windier than we have been recent mornings, with southeast winds 15 mph and seas 3 feet on the south side. As you go west along the island of Roatan winds get a bit calmer and they turn to the west on Utila. As the day goes on, winds should get a bit calmer and seas will calm to 2 feet southside, except for Guanaja, who will continue to have 15 mph east winds. Tomorrow through Friday look calmer again before we get stronger east winds this weekend.

If this just happens to be the weekend you want to buy Dad a steak, you can do no better than one of the moist and tasty cuts of beef at Carniceria Rosita.

High and low tides will be pretty mild today.

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Annette Huskin in Guanaja and shows the clouds threatening, but never quite raining at Brick Point. Yesterday a few of us got some sprinkles, but not much more. One thing the rain around us did was keep temperatures down. The high at the airport was 87 (31C) and it was noticeably cooler than those days last week when we got up to 93 (34C). The odds are that eventually some of us will get wet this week, the big question is when.

On satellite we can see a large area of showers and thunderstorms well to our east. Unfortunately it is only slowly drifting southwest and will weaken before it ever gets close to here. We have a few broken clouds around us but nothing promising rain. Each day this week we will have a chance of a morning shower, and right now it looks like the chances get a little better toward the end of the week, maybe 40 percent chances each morning.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We’ve been having 10 mph west winds and 2 foot seas in the mornings that switch over in the afternoons to 5 mph east winds and 1 foot seas. That will continue, but as we get toward the middle of the week the winds and seas in the mornings will get slightly higher, around 15 mph and 3 feet, with afternoon winds 5-10 mph and 2 feet starting Wednesday. Today and tomorrow we will continue to be 1-2 feet midday, so a great day for those Jolly Roger Roatan excursions.

It’s a challenge to find a good restaurant open on Monday, because many of them understandably take the day off. So if you want to eat out today, Ikigai by Robby Molina is staying open especially for you, and it doesn’t close until 9 p.m.!

Lowest tide will be 6:15 p.m. Have a great week.

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Cameron Kirkconnell in Utila and shows a couple of youngsters checking out the crystal clear waters on a crystal clear day. We haven’t had crystal clear days recently as we have been dealing with a lot of clouds that have knocked our temperature back from sweltering to just hot. If you have a photo you’d like to submit, please send it with name and location to bookmybio@gmail.com.

Here’s another sad satellite map that shows a storm to our north dying as it moves south over us. This has been a common occurrence the past few days. One of these mornings we will win the rain lottery and many of us will get wet. It’s just hard to say when that day will be.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We start the day with winds mostly out of the west at 5-10 mph and seas around 2 feet on both sides of the island. Winds will shift to the east this afternoon around 5 mph and seas will be around 1 foot. Our calm weather continues with light and variable winds and waves 1-2 feet. The only exception will be if we can get a squall, which will create momentary winds and waves that will soon pass.

One week from today is Roa Fest sponsored by Galaxy Wave at Sol y Mar in Sandy Bay. Lots of family fun, entry is only 50 lempira and you can enjoy Ley Seca (In English that is “Dry Law”) and many other performers from the island and mainland and lots of activities for the kids, but most importantly it all benefits the public hospital.

Low tide is 5:30 p.m. Have a great Sunday!

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Drew Shuller and shows a strategically place urinal in West End. That urinal has seen more moisture than our whole island these last few months.

We start with the radar since midnight and it shows a little squall line passing over the island around 1 a.m.

Here is the result of that squall we saw on radar from around 1 a.m. Several locations on Roatan picked up a measly .01 of an inch of rain, barely enough to get the ground wet.

For the rainfall forecast, I thought I’d start with the one that gives us the most hope. The Euro gives us about an inch over the next week and shifts the dry hole to our east. Over my last five years on the island, I’ve noticed that this time of year, when we start getting squalls off the sea, for some reason we are in a bit of a drier hole. There is generally more rain to our east, west, north and south. This year is no exception. The past few days we have suffered the fate of Tantallus, seeing rain all around but none for us.

Here’s the US GFS model for rainfall for the next week (through Friday) and we are the driest spot in the forecast, with maybe half an inch through the week.

You can see that the German ICON model agrees with the GFS that we will be in a dry hole for the next week.Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: Our winds and seas are quite close to flat calm. Winds will be light and variable through the weekend and seas 1 foot most of the time. Sunday night and Monday night we may get a little wind (10-15 mph) and next week looks SLIGHTLY windier with maybe 2 foot seas and occasionally 3 feet, but all in all the next week will be great on the water.

Mitch Cummins recently let me know he is working on a new process of freeze drying that will extend the shelf life of his Roatan Pets food, but the fact that it HAS a shelf life tells you what you need to know. His food is fresh and made of locally sourced ingredients focused on your pet’s health, not on corporate profit margin sitting on a shelf or on a boat for months on end.

Lowest tide is 4:30 p.m. Have a great weekend!

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Katy Pandy in Flowers Bay and shows a cumulus clouds with a flat base teasing her with the potential for rain. Don’t forget. For a chance at a free dive from Sandy Bay divers, send photos to bookmybio@gmail.com with name and location. We’ve been teased a lot by rain and today is no different. A nice storm danced around us last night.

We can see the storm cranking up around 1 a.m. near Puerto Cortes where they picked up about an inch of rain. It passes over Utila around 3 a.m. (I don’t see any rain recorded at any of the three stations.) and moves north out to sea east of Belize. We have some clouds moving over us on the south side of this storm this morning but not a whole lot of rain.

Here are the rainfall totals since midnight. Looks like a few locations midisland got their ground wet around 3 a.m.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: When winds are fairly mild, as they are right now, wind direction will often be variable. Today we are dealing with west winds 7-12 miles per hour, which means that we have 2 foot waves north and west sides of the island. Winds will switch to the east/northeast this afternoon, but will be only 3-7 mph and seas 1 foot. We will continue to have light and variable winds and seas 1-2 feet this weekend.

One of the things I really miss living on the island is really good Asian food. Yesterday I was at Ikigai by Robby Molina and she tried this Shrimp Teppan Bowl. The buttery sesame flavor of the fried rice under the tenderly cooked shrimp was out of this world!

Here is the Shrimp Teppan Bowl along with a lot of other great Asian offerings at Ikigai. I can’t wait to try the Shrimp Pad Thai!

Low tide is 3:45 p.m. Have a great Friday!

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Jill Haley Wood in Parrot Tree. Her photo shows some rain clouds teasing her and we have some rain clouds teasing us to the north this morning. That’s the problem with being small islands in the big sea. The rain doesn’t always fall in the right places.

On our satellite this morning we see a bank of clouds, mostly to our north. There may be a shower or two in these clouds. We will have mostly cloudy skies this morning and more sun this afternoon. Through the weekend I’m hopeful for some showers across the islands. We will have a 30 percent chance each morning.
Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We awake to 10 mph east winds and seas 1-2 feet. We will calm to 5-10 mph and 1 foot seas this afternoon and will have great sea conditions through the weekend, mostly 1-2 feet southside. Next week we will have slightly higher seas, but only 2-3 feet, so overall a great time to be on the sea.

Lowest tide is 3 p.m. and we have new moon tonight. Have a great Thursday and I’ll see you on the island.

Rainfall (or lack of it) for May 2024. It will not surprise you to know that we are putting 0 inches of rain in the record books for the month of May. It is actually the first rainless May in our records going back to 1995. May 2024 will be one of the more memorable smoke seasons, with the airport closing several mornings due to visibility.

We have had less than an inch of rain recorded since the beginning of March. Looking forward into June, we normally pick up more squalls from the east with an average rainfall of over 3 inches. We have chances of rain, starting this weekend. Let’s hope they come through because the island is very thirsty.