March 9, 2023: Good morning, Roatan! We are back to bright, sunny skies after a couple of days of haze caused by high clouds. Our forecast remains dry until Wednesday, when we have a chance of scattered showers from a cold front that will be weakening when it gets here. Until then, the primary change in our weather is that the winds and seas are going to get quite calm. Today and tomorrow winds should be in the 10-15 mph range and seas 2-3 feet, but starting Saturday winds will be almost dead calm during the day and maybe 15 mph at night. The weekend into the first part of next week looks like a great time to get out on the sea. Have a great Thursday!

Good morning, Bay Islands! There have been a few scattered showers north of Tela and Puerto Cortes, far to the west of Utila.

Over our islands we have lots of high clouds with no rain this morning.

This morning winds are around 15-20 mph from the east and seas are 2 feet (.7 meters). Today will continue to have high clouds and dry conditions. Winds will be 12-17 mph and seas 2 to maybe 3 feet for the rest of the week. There will be a very small chance of a shower tomorrow morning, but otherwise we will be dry. We are still looking for some scattered showers and perhaps a little fresh air Wednesday and Thursday next week. Have a great Wednesday!

We got some rainfall around 4 a.m., especially mid-island. Looks like the far west side missed out.

We will have a cloudy day, but not necessarily a rainy day. Throughout today we will have the high clouds coming from the west. These are not rain clouds, but will bring us hazy, cloudy skies. This morning we will have some low clouds that may bring some of us a shower. Winds will be from the east at 10-15 mph and seas at 2-3 feet. The clouds will keep us a bit cooler today and tomorrow, right around our current reading of 80 degrees.

On the bright side, the computer models are starting to agree that we should get some rain mid to late week next week, and perhaps some cooler temperatures.

March 6, 2023: Good morning, Bay Islands! I did a video for today’s forecast. The main points:

1. 15-20 mph winds this week with seas 3-4 feet.

2. Tomorrow and Wednesday we wil have high cirrus clouds, but little to no rain. Maybe a small chance Tuesday and Wednesday morning. These clouds will make Tuesday and Wednesday a bit cooler.

3. The US GFS model is giving us a norther Wednesday of next week, but the Euro completely disagrees, keeping us dry next week. If I had to choose, I’m afraid I would go with the drier forecast, because cold fronts typically stay north of us this time of year, but we will know more the middle of this week.

March 5, 2023: Good morning Bay Islands. Now that was better! Last night our winds only got up around 17 mph and most of the night were around 10-15 mph.

We wake up with 3 foot seas around the island. There are some clouds off to our east, but mostly we’re still hazy from dust in the upper atmosphere.

We should be a little windier tonight that last night, but not as windy as last week. Winds at night should be around 20 mph and around 10-15 mph during the day. We should see seas 2-3 feet in the afternoons and 3-4 feet overnight.

The computer models are not giving us much hope for some morning showers this week, but they tend to underestimate the rain when we have scattered clouds around, so I’m going to say we will have a chance at seeing a morning shower this week, especially Wednesday morning. Some computer models are trying to give us better rain chances toward the end of next weekend and the beginning of the following week. Let’s hope so. Otherwise, have a great Sunday.

March 4, 2023: Good morning Bay Islands. Winds are quite calm this morning, though seas are still around 3-4 feet. Today will be one of the calmest days we’ve had in awhile Seas toward Ceiba should be down around 1 foot, a welcome relief from what we had last week. It also is quite hazy and I think we have some smoke around from some fires burning off fields. After today winds will be a bit stronger, but I think we don’t have to worry about 35 mph winds. Daytime winds starting tomorrow will be 15-20 mph and nighttime winds 20-25 with seas mostly 3-4 feet. We should have a few morning clouds midweek and therefor we will have a small chance of a shower, but it will be only a small chance. Have a great weekend!

March 2, 2023: Good morning Bay Islands! All this dry weather and dust are increasing my number of sneezes. Seas are 4-5 feet this morning after getting up to 7 feet last night. We had another night of 35 mph winds. We will be windy today through Friday. Saturday we are looking for a bit of a calmer day with 10-15 mph winds and seas at 3 feet. Starting Sunday we will be windy, but not quite as windy. Instead of 35 mph nighttime winds, we will have 25 mph nighttime winds. Our hopes for some morning rain showers are much less, perhaps a few midweek next week. Have a great Thursday!

Our rainfall totals ranged from 1.57 inches in French Harbour to 3.38 inches in West End. (Utila did a little better with 4.01 inches) We will put 2.57 from Sandy Bay in the books, about half our normal 5.34 inches. That is the lowest February rainfall since the drought year of 2019. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again. Lots of community wells went dry that year. We seem to be moving into an El Nino neutral (neither El Nino nor La Nina) phase, which is characterized by brisk trade winds and drier conditions for the western Caribbean. We begin March with a dry forecast. March is the true beginning of our dry season with only an average of 3.56 inches of rain. It looks like we’ll struggle to get there.

March 1, 2023: Good morning Bay Islands and welcome to March! We start the month dry and windy and will continue that way for at least the first week. This morning we have winds at 20 mph and seas at 4 feet. We will continue our 20 mph windy days and 30 mph windy nights. Winds should calm a bit this weekend, but the long-range models that were giving us some morning showers early next week are starting to weaken. Things look pretty dry for a long while. Have a great Wednesday!

Feb. 28, 2023: Good morning Bay Islands! A friend of mine who hosts tours noticed that during the week when he’s doing tours it’s been windy and choppy and on the weekends when there are no tours it’s been calmer. That will certainly be true this week. Last night we got up to 32 mph winds and 6 foot seas. This morning we have 20 mph winds and 3-4 foot seas. Those winds and seas will follow the same pattern through Friday.
Saturday we should get calmer. That is also when we will start getting a better chance of morning showers, though we still don’t expect a lot of rain this weekend or next week, but a little rain will still be better than this week when we’re getting nothing. Have a great Tuesday!