Difference between El Niño and La Niña for Roatan hurricane chances

I thought we might take a look at the difference between hurricanes in La Niña years and El Niño years.

Last year was a major La Niña year and, just as this chart shows, we didn’t have to deal with a lot of hurricanes in the Caribbean. You will notice La Niña brings an increase in hurricanes in the eastern Pacific. This definitly happened last year. Who can forget Hurricane Otis slamming Acapulco or California actually getting hit by a tropical storm?

Here is the typical El Niño hurricane effect. We’re forecast to be in El Niño by late summer. Notice that the Atlantic and Caribbean have more hurricanes on average due to less wind shear. Wind shear is contrary wind that tends to break storms apart as they grow in height. It doesn’t necessarily mean we will have a hurricane in our neighborhood, but the chances definitely increase. Keep in mind our hurricane season typically runs from August to early November.

May 1, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. Some of you have the day off because today is the International Day of the Worker in Honduras and around 160 other countries. Our photo of the day comes from Josée Massicotte in West Bay and shows a unique perspective on a sunset. She will be the first to be entered into the May contest for a $50 gift certificate to Hangover Hut. If you want to vote on the winner of the April contest, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/1525570211701728/permalink/1568904830701599/

If you want to be jealous, take a look at the nice rains in the eastern Caribbean, in Jamaica, eastern Cuba, Hispanola and Puerto Rico. Unfortunately none of that is coming our way. It will move north, then northeast into the Atlantic. We will continue to have hot, hazy skies. Our high yesterday at the airport was 88 (31C) but our inland weather station in West Bay Hills got up to 91.5 (33C). We will have more of that for the week ahead with very little to no chance of rain.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: Today is the day we start seeing winds get a bit calmer, though not completely calm. We start the day with east winds around 20 mph and seas 3 feet on the southside. That should calm to around 15 mph and seas 2-3 feet by midday. We’ll notice a big difference at night, when winds stay around 15 mph. Those conditions should last through the weekend.

Low tides are 9:40 a.m. and 10 p.m. Have a great Wednesday!

April 30, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day is from Glory Cone and shows a young man entering the water to hunt lionfish in Lucy Point. I have made the decision to do the photo contest on May 1, because doing it on the last day of the month confused some people. The top five-liked photos from April will compete tomorrow for a $50 gift certificate to Blue Bahia Beach Grill. Our new contest will start tomorrow.

We start the day with some high, hazy clouds but no rain clouds anywhere nearby. We will continue to have partly cloudy skies and our hope for morning showers has faded. We will probably stay dry the rest of the week. Winds will start getting a little calmer. Today we will have east winds 15-20 mph during the day and 20-25 mph at night, but starting tomorrow and through the rest of the week our east winds should be right around 15 mph and seas 2-3 feet southside day and night. It will be a typical, boring weather start to May.

One of the things that is worrisome about the upcoming hurricane season is that our sea temperatures are consistently running well above historical averages. That is true in the waters around Roatan as well. This is a chart of the one working buoy that records temperature around our islands. It is in a location on the northside called White Hole. You can find it here: https://aqualink.org/sites/3324. This buoy records the temperature at 1 meter deep and at 14 meters deep. You can see in the chart our sea temperature for the past year has run about 1 degree Celsius above our historical average. Of course, most of us remember what a hot summer we had last year, with sea temperatures peaking around 32 Celsius/90 Fahrenheit. This was a major coral bleaching event. The bad news is that we are running about half a degree Celsius above where we were last year. That doesn’t necessarily mean our seas will be hotter than last year, but it isn’t good. In future posts we will talk about sea temperatures across the Atlantic and what that can mean for hurricane season this year.

Lowest tide will be 9 p.m. Have a great Tuesday!

Effect of La Niña on hurricanes on Roatan and the Bay Islands

One of the big questions people want answered is “How likely is my vacation to the Bay Islands to be interrupted by a hurricane?” The answer is usually not very likely, but let’s take a look at how we might be impacted by La Niña, which is expected to cool the Pacific waters by late summer into early fall of this year, 2024. Here is a chart of the fluctuation between El Niño and La Niña. We are coming out of a strong El Niño that gave us scorching temperatures and hot waters last year, but no real hurricane threats. By contrast, strong La Niñas tend to cut down on the wind shear in the Atlantic, which gives storms a better chance to build. This chart shows our most recent strong La Niñas were 2007, 2010-11 and 2020. Keep in mind that we think we are headed for La Niña by late summer early fall, but we don’t know how strong it will be.

Now let’s take a look at recent La Niña years and the effect it has had on our rainfall. Except for 2020, I wasn’t here during these years, but if we got a lot of rain in August, September or early October, chances are good that we were affected by the remnants of a hurricane or tropical storm. We see that trend for recent strong La Niñas in 2007 and 2010-11. I was here in 2020 when our last hurricane season brought Eta and Iota that devastated the mainland and brought us some rains in November. Hurricane Nana also brought us good rains in August-September of that year. So the setup for a strong hurricane season in the south Atlantic/eastern Caribbean is there. We just have to wait and see how strong the La Niña is. Keep in mind our peak season for hurricanes runs late August into early November.

April 29, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. For our photo of the day is Murray Diederich’s pic of the last time the world’s largest cruise ship docked on our island. This time it will be greeted with morning clouds, afternoon sun and brisk east winds.

The clouds we have this morning are the result of these mid-level clouds moving in from Belize. These will bring us some relief from the morning sun, but no rain. We should see more sun midday and in the afternoon. Today we will have east winds 15-20 mph and seas 3-4 feet during the day southside and 20-30 mph tonight with seas 4-5 feet southside. Tomorrow winds and seas will be slightly less than today and by Wednesday they should be pretty consistently 15 mph and seas 2-3 feet. Unfortunately our midweek morning rain chances, which once looked pretty good, now look pretty bad. We’ll keep a 10 percent chance of a morning shower Wednesday and Thursday.

You only have two days left to get the great deal of 25 percent of Galaxy Wave tickets to La Ceiba. Remember you can purchase them at Petrosun and Roa Market locations, as well as Casa Blanca in Pandy Town!

Low tide will be 7:45 p.m. Have a great week!

April 28, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Kathy Sidenstricker and shows the Icon of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world, behind the Flowers Bay Roatan sign. The Icon will be returning to the island tomorrow. It will be a windy, dry visit.

On satellite this morning, the popcorn clouds are well to our northeast, so another dry day is in store. We have some high hazy clouds and speaking of haze …

This is an image showing the concentration of carbon monoxide in the air. CO is a byproduct of combustion and indicates where the heaviest concentrations of smoke. This isn’t the smokiest day we’ve seen, but there are some fires on the mainland and some smoke in the air that is worse the closer to the mainland you are. We also have some Saharan dust in the air. The dust should get a little better by midweek, but until then, expect hazy skies instead of deep blue skies.

Speaking of annoyances, we are also dealing with sargassum. It’s kind of hard to see, but this loop shows patches of seagrass in red. The loop starts on April 24. This forecast map is put out once a week by the Mexican meteorological office, so we won’t have another forecast until Wednesday. This indicates things should get a little better by midweek, but I’m by no means an expert on seagrass forecasts.

I am, however, an expert on meat. I know a great cut when I taste one and great meat is what you get at Carniceria Rosita. They are closed today, but drop by Monday through Saturday at either their French Harbor or Coxen Hole locations.

High tides are pretty low and low tide is 6:20 p.m. Have a great Sunday!

Declination of the sun over Roatan

table-of-the-declination-of-the-sunDownload

In our recent discussions about temperature on Roatan, I noted that May and September seem to be the hottest months of the year, which I attributed to lack of clouds and, especially in September, calm winds. But Roger Quigg of Jolly Roger Roatan pointed out the role of declination, that is the angle of the sun overhead. North of the tropics we know that the most direct rays come around June 20. That is when the sun shoots direct rays at the Tropic of Cancer at 23 degrees 27 minutes north. But here in Roatan we are south of the Tropic of Cancer at 16 degrees 23 minutes north. If you check this chart, it shows that we have the sun directly overhead on May 6 and August 8. Of course, there’s more to how hot it is than whether you are getting direct sun rays, but I think we can all agree that when you step off the plane, you know you’re in the tropics because the sun is simply more intense. That has a lot to do with getting direct sun rays.

April 27, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Kathy Beselinoff in Half Moon Bay. Like her photo to give her a chance at a $50 gift certificate to Blue Bahia Beach Grill. The top five photos compete in a poll on Tuesday. If you would like to enter your photo send it to bookmybio@gmail.com with name of photographer and location.

Let’s start with the satellite image. We are quite clear this morning, with all the popcorn clouds to our northeast. These clouds are moving to the northwest so it is unlikely we will see much in the way of clouds today. We start the day a bit windier than we’ve been, with 20 mph east winds and seas at 3 feet on the southside. We’ll stay right around 20 mph during the day today, but tonight we will get up to 30 mph and seas around 5 feet southside. These windy conditions will last through Monday. Midweek next week we calm back down to 15 mph east winds and our chance of a morning shower goes up to 20-30 percent.

Cinco de Mayo is coming up and Ikigai by Robby Molina will be having specials on Mexican food that evening. Reservations are welcome but not required. Ikigai is wholly owned by Robby Molina, recognized as one of the top chefs in Central America, and Melissa Dixon.

Tides in general are pretty low, with lowest tide around 5 p.m. Have a great weekend!

April 26, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from John Atkins in Mangrove Bight, but not the Mangrove Bight on Guanaja. Evidently we have one on Roatan too, between Gibson Bight and West End. We have some shower activity on satellite

This beautiful sound comes from Jimmy Andrade, near his Las La Sirena de Camp Bay, Restaurant & Bar.

Here are the clouds bringing the rain on satellite at 7:15 a.m. These clouds are moving toward the west/northwest so we have a chance at a shower over the next hour or so. These morning popcorn clouds are our best chances for rain this time of year. If I can give you some hope, it looks like starting around Tuesday of next week our chances at these kind of showers are going to go up during the first week or so of May, perhaps a 20-30 percent chance each morning. Until then we will stay with about a 10 percent chance each morning.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We continue with east winds 15 mph and seas 2-3 feet, but starting tonight we will have east winds gusting to 25 mph and tomorrow night to 30 mph. Over the weekend, daytime winds should be east around 20 mph. Our east winds calm back to around 15 mph middle of next week.

If you’re visiting Roatan and you want to stay dry when in the boat and wet when you’re in the water, check out Jolly Roger Roatan for the best excursions, guaranteed to make sure you are safely on the ship when it pulls out of dock.

Low tide is 3:50 p.m. Have a great Friday!

April 25, 2024

Good morning Bay Islands. Our full moon photo today was taken by Phil Sikora at Carib Bight below Juticalpa. We had a question in yesterday’s comments about the sargassum. We will take a stab at guessing when it gets less stinky.

Let’s start with our satellite photo. We see some popcorn clouds at 6:50 a.m., especially around Barbarat Island. These clouds are moving southwest. Paiz Sloane on the north side of Guanaja picked up .02 of an inch around 5:30 a.m. We will keep a small chance of a morning shower, but most of us will again stay sadly dry. Chances for morning showers will remain VERY small, around 5-10 percent until around Tuesday of next week, when we get a little more moisture and our chances go up to around 20-30 percent.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We’ve had pretty consistent 15 mph winds and 2-3 foot waves for about the past week. That will continue today and tomorrow, but tomorrow night we start getting a bit stronger east winds, especially at night. Starting Friday night we will get 25 mph east winds and Saturday night 30 mph east winds. Daytime winds will be mostly 15-20 mph from the east.

I got a question from Marty Klein in the comments yesterday about when we will get rid of the sargassum. I found a website, sargassummonitoring.com, that has a forecast map I’m showing here. Based on satellite observations, we are indeed in seagrass attack mode. It looks like it is predicting for most of it to move past the Bay Islands in two or three days, moving with the current from east to west.

Time is running out! You have until April 30 to get your 25 percent discount on tickets to La Ceiba!

Low tide is around 3 p.m. Have a great Thursday!