Welcome to Roatan Weather

October 29, 2025

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Lorena González-Vindel who captured this lightning strike in French Harbour last night. We have been hit pretty hard by lightning storms the last couple of days and many locations have gotten close to 6 inches over the last 48 hours.

To summarize our forecast, we will continue rainy this week, but a norther will arrive on Thursday bringing north winds and fresh temperatures. For the next two weeks, the driest day looks to be Saturday and maybe Sunday, which could be quite nice and maybe even require a jacket.

Let’s start with a quick look at rainfall since midnight. I know this isn’t everybody with a station, but it gives us an overview of who got the most rain.

We can see on satellite at 8 a.m. that West Bay is getting some clearing and some sun, but recently whenever we think things are going to clear out, the storms build back and take over again. Periods of heavy rain are likely through tomorrow. Thursday brings our norther and lots of clouds that drop a cool rain on us. That should continue through Friday morning, but as we get into Saturday, we should get into the drier side of the norther. When this happens we often get some gray clouds, but less rain. I think we should get close to 70 degrees (21C) Saturday morning and maybe Sunday morning. Sunday evening into next week the heavy rain returns.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: We start the day with northwest winds 10 mph and seas around 3 feet northside. This afternoon we should see those calm a bit, but tomorrow the norther sweeps in as we can see from the current wind map. I expect northwest winds 20-25. Seas should be 5 feet northside tomorrow, 4 feet on Friday and around 2 feet Saturday.

This is the US GFS forecast for precipitation for the next two weeks. You can clearly see the norther come in Thursday and try to clear us out Saturday. Starting Sunday night you can see the rebound moisture bringing us rain. As the week goes on next week, you can see perhaps a little rotation in the rain, and I think it is possible the NOAA NWS National Hurricane Center gives us a little yellow X for the possibility of a tropical depression. I don’t think this is likely, but I do think it is possible. We’ll keep an eye on it.

Over the next month we will have a couple of holidays particularly popular with North Americans (OK, Canadians have their own Thanksgiving at a different time). But when folks get together for these occasions they want the best meat on the island for grilling, and they get that at Carniceria Rosita with locations in Coxen Hole and French Harbour.

Low tide is 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. Have a great Wednesday!

October 28, 2025

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from friend of Roatan Weather Duane McNab taken overlooking Pristine Bay. We continue to deal with rain, but obviously nothing compared to what’s going on in Jamaica, which is officially one of the strongest storms in recorded history.

Here is our 9 a.m. satellite, just as Hurricane Melissa is making landfall. At 892 millibars of pressure it is among the strongest storms ever recorded. For comparison, Hurricane Mitch got down to 905 millibars. Sustained winds are 185 mph. Buoys recorded 22 foot waves near Alligator Reef. There will be a swath of western Jamaica that will be absolutely devastated by this storm.

As for us on the islands, you will notice a storm over Utila that is trying to move from west to east. The broad flow around Melissa has our winds coming out of the west around 20 mph and seas at 3-4 feet, especially north side. Winds will continue out of the west/northwest at 15-20 mph today and seas 3-4 feet from the northeast. All in all we are quite fortunate as this will be the strongest effect from Melissa for us. Winds will be around 15 mph from the north tomorrow with 3 foot seas. Thursday a norther comes in bringing 20 mph north winds and 5 foot seas. We will be quite rainy this week, but rain should become less on Friday and we have a possibility of a very nice weekend, with fresh temperatures and some sun. Rain and north winds look like they will return next Monday and Tuesday.

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Tides continue to be quite mild. Have a great Tuesday!

October 26, 2025

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Phil Sikora in Caribe Bight at sunset.

We continue to get rain at the pace of about an inch a day. That doesn’t look like it will change as we get into the week ahead, and we have a little norther coming Friday.

Here is the latest on Hurricane Melissa. This morning it has 140 mph sustained winds, a category 4. It hasn’t strengthened much this morning and we will have to wait to see if it reaches Cat5 by tomorrow night when it is expected to strike almost directly at Kingston, a city of over a million people. Tuesday night a somewhat weaker, but still strong hurricane will strike Santiago, Cuba, a city of over half a million, as well as the US base at Guantanamo, which has largely been evacuated.

If there is a bright side, it seems that this storm is very compact, and the northwest side, including Montego, might not get the brunt of the storm. I have some friends in the Montego area, and I’m hoping they might escape the worst of Melissa.

As for effects on our weather, the waves we were worried about, don’t look too bad. We are dealing with 3 foot seas north side, and at its worst, we shouldn’t see more than 4-5 foot seas this evening through Monday.

As the storm moves up the Atlantic, to the east of the US East Coast, it will pull down northerly winds, including a little norther on Friday that could bring 20-30 mph gusts and 5 foot seas north side. Of course, as with any norther, this will continue to bring the rain through the week. Have a great Sunday!

October 25, 2025

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Kerry Crawford who captured this ship in the storm from Mangrove Bight yesterday. We definitely have gotten the rain the last couple of days. Many locations west side and Utila got nearly 3 inches yesterday and another inch or so this morning. East side totals have been closer to an inch the last 24 hours. We will continue to have rain this morning. I am hopeful for a little dry time this afternoon before more rain tomorrow morning. I also think we will have some dryness tomorrow afternoon, but Monday through Wednesday look wet again. This isn’t directly the result of Melissa, but our northeast winds are the result of her.

On Saturday morning Melissa is estimated to have 70 mph winds, which is just below hurricane speed. She is drifting VERY slowly west. She is expected to start turning north sometime between now and Monday. Interestingly, many of the traditional computers are trying to push this storm to the east, between Jamaica and Haiti. That would be a good outcome for Jamaica, but Google DeepMind and many AI tools are keeping her south of Jamaica before turning north, with a direct hit somewhere near Kingston as a category 4 hurricane on Monday. That is a worst-case scenario for Jamaica, with perhaps two feet of rain before we get 150 mph winds.

Our main concern from this storm is waves. This morning we have 3 foot waves north side with 10 mph north winds. The further east we go, the wavier it gets. Buoys on the north side of Guanaja show waves almost 5 feet. We need to watch how far west this storm gets. We should get a little wavier north side through Monday, after which things should get calmer. If the storm grows and gets south or southwest of Jamaica, we could see 7 foot seas, especially north side of Guanaja, Sunday night into Monday. Have a great weekend!

October 23, 2025

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day is from Tricia Power of sunrise in West Bay.
We have quite a bit of rain around (almost an inch in West Bay as of 7 a.m.) that has nothing to do with Tropical Storm Melissa.

On satellite from 1-7 a.m. we see the clouds that have brought a lot of rain, especially to the west side and Utila. As of 7 a.m. the east side and Guanaja has gotten just a few hundredths of an inch, but that can change as there will be scattered showers around through the weekend. We still see another 3-4 inches possible over that time period, with plenty of clouds.
Winds this morning are from the northwest around 5 mph and seas about 1 foot north sided. We should see the winds stay mostly from the northwest and seas pick up to 2-3 feet as we get into the weekend.

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You will notice from the big white circle that the NOAA NWS National Hurricane Center thinks Tropical Storm Melissa will drift west over the next few days, but after that they are unsure where it is heading. A few headlines:
It should EVENTUALLY head northeast sometime next week, but the closer it gets to us early next week, the wavier our seas will be (potentially 7-8 feet in a worst case scenario)
It may bring some fairly strong north winds (20-25 mph) and that may mean that the weekend of Nov. 1-2 will be quite fresh.

Melissa is quite weak right now. It is sheared, meaning the storm is not straight up and down. The top of the storm is about 100 miles to the west of the bottom of the storm, which is keeping it weak, probably less that 45 mph. That should change this weekend as upper level winds calm down and allow the storm to straighten up and strengthen, probably to a category 3 hurricane. The people who should be most concerned about this are the folks in Jamaica which is most likely to take a direct hit. But as you see in the GFS spaghetti map, there are a few models that show it coming closer to us. It is still quite unlikely the storm itself hits us, but the closer it comes, the windier and wavier we will get next week.

The Euro computer thinks this storm will move to the west of Jamaica, and that would give us 8 foot seas by Tuesday.

By contrast the GFS thinks the storm will have moved north by then, giving us tranquil seas next Tuesday.

Whatever happens, if this storm gets as strong as they think it will, it should bring us some northerly winds next week, and perhaps some cooler air for the following weekend, as this temperature anomaly map shows. It also shows a major norther coming in about two weeks with even cooler air. As always, we will keep an eye on it.

October 21, 2025

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Lisa Hopkins Baker at Turquoise Bay.

Our potential tropical storm near Aruba looks a little stronger this morning and US military planes will be going to inspect it.

Let’s start with our weather this morning. At 7 a.m. we see some rain off to our east. Guanaja has picked up .02 as of 7 a.m. We will continue to deal with some scattered showers, but we shouldn’t get rained out completely. Winds continue to be quite mild and seas are around 1 foot in most locations.

Here is the current location of our storm, near Aruba. The projected path is a little further north this morning. Over the next few days it is expected to become a tropical storm (it probably already is a tropical depression) and it will slowly move toward Jamaica and Haiti. Most computers have it moving well to our northeast and away from us. The major models GFS, Euro and ICON agree on this.

There is one model that has it moving closer toward us. This is the Canadian model. It has a tropical storm building to our east before finally moving away from us a week from today. This goes to show how uncertain these computer models are. Is it possible we are affected by a tropical storm over the next week? Yes. Is it likely? No. We will continue to keep an eye on it.

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Tides continue to run on the high side. Have a great Tuesday!

Edit:

We now officially have a Tropical Storm Melissa. As far as I can remember, I think this may be our first named storm in the Caribbean. The main thing to know is this storm is expected to turn north EVENTUALLY, but there is still a lot of uncertainty about its track. The further west it goes, the stronger it will get. Right now I would say this has an 80 percent chance of turning north before having any effect on us, but that means there is something like a 20 percent chance it comes close enough to us to affect us.

This is Google’s AI weather forecast “spaghetti” map of the possible directions this storm takes. You will see the vast majority have it wobbling a bit, but eventually turning north over Haiti/Domincan Republic, though a few have it coming further west. Almost none have it making a direct hit on us, though there is one the has it wobbling for two weeks before coming our way, but that is one model out of about 100. So chances are VERY good that we aren’t affected in a big way. We’ll keep an eye on it.

October 17, 2025

Good morning. Drew Shuller captured these movie stars on West Bay Beach a couple of weeks ago.

This morning isn’t this sunny for most of us. Just since 5 a.m. West Bay has picked up well over an inch of rain with more possible this morning. We also have our first real possibility of a tropical storm in the Caribbean.

If you look real close at our 6-7 a.m. satellite, you can see the dark gray cloud top blossom over West Bay. We also see a lot of rain to our north. We’ll look for lots of scattered showers around this morning. These should weaken this afternoon. I’m not going to say it won’t rain this afternoon, but we should definitely see more sun.

Into the weekend we will continue to have scattered showers, mostly overnights and early mornings.

Here is the forecast from the NOAA NWS National Hurricane Center showing the storm we talked about earlier this week as it was coming off the coast of Africa. You will notice that the yellow box of its forecast movement is to our south. That is because we are starting to see the influence of cold fronts from our north that will tend to push this system south of us. It only has a 30 percent chance of developing into a tropical depression over the next week. Chances are good this has no effect on our weather, but we will keep an eye on it.

Wind and Galaxy Wave forecast: Winds and waves overall are fairly calm, but don’t tell the folks on West Bay Beach, because this is the time of year we see what little wave action we get going where it hardly ever goes, West Bay. We have 1-2 foot waves coming in on West Bay Beach from 10 mph west winds. Winds today will continue from the west, but we should see light and variable winds through the weekend. We are watching a very light norther perhaps for the end of the coming week that will bring more rain and perhaps 2-3 foot waves to West Bay by late next week.

Low tide is 12:30 p.m. Have a great Friday!

October 14, 2025

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Bob Jacobs, showing sunrise from Palmetto Bay.
We continue to have gorgeous weather with calm winds and seas and only small chances of showers. There will be a bit higher chance of rain tomorrow.

On satellite at 8 a.m. we see another rainmaker off the Mosquito Coast, but it should stay out there and most of us should stay dry today. Our light winds are out of the north today, but tomorrow they will shift to the west. Seas will remain quite calm, but most islanders associate a west wind with rain and our rain chances will go up to 40 or 50 percent tomorrow. After that we still look quite calm through the rest of the week into the weekend with 30-40 percent chances of showers, mostly overnights and early mornings.

Just off the coast of Africa we have a tropical wave that most models think will turn into a tropical storm of some sort. If it were to come our way, it would be two weeks away, so there is a great deal of uncertainty about exactly where it will go, so I wouldn’t get too worried. Also, about the same time toward the end of the month some models show us getting our first norther of the season. We’ll keep an eye on both.

If you are planning your trip to Roatan, come on down, the water is just perfect. And check out Jolly Roger Roatan for your excursion. They will get you back safely and on time.

Low tide is 10:30 a.m. Have a great Tuesday!

October 13, 2025

Good morning Bay Islands. Our photo of the day comes from Brenda Diamond who caught this twilight at the Utila Cays.

Gorgeous weather continues.

At 8 a.m. we have a storm well to the southeast of Guanaja. It isn’t moving much and I don’t think it’s likely to make it over here. We will continue to have very low chances of isolated showers today, maybe 20 percent. Tomorrow and the rest of the week we will have scattered showers 30-40 percent likely, mostly at night or early morning. Winds and seas will remain remarkably calm this week.

A lot of times we will get emails from scared North American tourists who have seen the extended forecast on a phone app and worry their vacation will be rained out. You will note the extended forecast shows scary 60 chances of rain. But two things to keep in mind.

1. Forecasts more than 5-6 days are quite inaccurate (this is progress. 20 years ago I would have said 1-2 days).

2. These rain chances aren’t based on a specific forecast but on the historic normal rain for rainy season.

So, don’t worry about long range forecasts.

Low tide is 9:20 a.m. Have a great week!

Rainfall for September 2025

We’re kind of late with our September 2025 rainfall total, but we’re going with 2.42 inches from Sandy Bay, but that amount is pretty typical acrosst he islands, except for Utila, which got over 4 inches. We only got about half the rain for a normal September.

Looking ahead, October is the first month of the rainy season, though the really rainy part usually start in the second half of the month. Most locations have already received around 2 inches for the month and there are good rain chances ahead in our forecast, thought still no signs of any tropical storms.