Dec. 30, 2022: Good morning, Roatan! We have a few clouds coming in from the east that will give us partly cloudy skies this morning. I guess it’s possible someone sees a sprinkle, but it isn’t likely. We have seas 2-3 feet this morning, calming to 1-2 feet toward Ceiba. Winds will be mild today with easterly winds around 10 mph, getting up to 15-20 mph tonight with seas 3-4 feet. Tomorrow winds and seas should calm toward 2 feet. Tomorrow night winds will get back to 15-20 mph and seas to 3-4 feet and Sunday looks like the winds may stay up a bit 12-17 mph keeping seas around 3 feet. The entire forecast is almost completely dry. The next good chance of rain starts a week from today into next weekend. Have a great Friday!

Dec. 29, 2022: Good morning, Roatan! We finally awoke to beautiful sunny skies and very calm winds. Seas are down to around 3 feet (1 meter) and should calm down to around 2 feet by afternoon.
Tonight winds will pick up out of the east to 12-17 mph and seas at about 4 feet overnight.
Tomorrow looks beautiful, if a bit windier than today around 10 mph and seas to 2 feet.
That forecast will be good for at least the next week. Have a great Thursday!

Dec. 28, 2022: Good morning, Roatan! Most of us have gotten between 3.5 and 4.5 inches of rain since midnight Tuesday morning. Utila has recorded a jaw-dropping 10.83 inches. They also recorded the coldest temperature this morning at 69.8 degrees F (21 degrees Celsius). Today the Galaxy Wave resumes service, but I recommend you take your Dramamine, as the waves on the north side this morning are 2 meters (6.5 feet).

Today we will still have a chance of a scattered shower, especially in the morning, but clouds and showers should decrease through the day. Seas will be 4-5 feet around Roatan and 3-4 feet near Ceiba. Winds will be from the west at 10-15 mph.

Tomorrow should be quite a nice day with calm winds, clear skies and seas around 2 feet.

Starting tomorrow night we will have brisk winds over night from the east 17-22 mph that will give us 4 foot seas early in morning (around 2 feet near Ceiba). Each day those winds will calm to around 7-12 mph meaning evening seas around 2 feet. Clear skies and very little chance of rain continue into next week. Have a great Wednesday!

Dec. 27, 2022: Good morning Roatan! Our norther finally arrived. We’ve all gotten a lot of rain and we’ll all get a lot more, but the good news is that after tomorrow morning it should be over. As I mentioned in the previous post, the Sandy Bay buoy picked up some 10 foot waves this morning and the waves on the north side are averaging 7-8 feet outside the reef. Not surprisingly the Galaxy Wave yacht is canceled this morning and I’d be surprised if it ran this afternoon. We may see waves ease by a foot or so this afternoon to 6-7 feet.

Today will be quite rainy and windy, and I’m a little worried about some flooding in areas that like to flood, with another several inches falling through the day and especially overnight. We haven’t gotten much lightning with this system, but if we do, it should come tonight. The second morning of a norther is usually the freshest, so I’ll be looking for some 69 or 70 degree readings tomorrow morning.

Waves should improve tomorrow, with 4 foot seas here and 3 foot seas toward Ceiba. Winds will be from the west/southwest at 15-20 mph. After morning showers, rain should lessen tomorrow afternoon.

Thursday looks to be a gorgeous day with light winds, lots of sun and seas around 2 feet.

Friday into next week should be dry, but at night those easterly trade winds will pick up to around 20 mph. Seas will be 2 feet during the day and 4 feet overnight. Have a great Tuesday and take an umbrella!

Dec. 26, 2022: Good morning, Roatan! We got quite a bit of rain on the far east and west ends of the island but less rain in the middle. West Bay and West End got almost an inch, while Punta Blanca got 2.22 inches and Politilly got 1.43. Seas this morning are around 5 feet, especially on the north side.

As you can see in the 9 a.m. radar, there is quite a bit of rain between the islands and Belize.

The Euro has those winds a bit stronger …

… than the GFS, but this circulation should create stormy weather for the next three days, especially for Tuesday.

Today clouds will increase, with the chance ofa shower increasing as we get further into the afternoon. Seas will remain around 5 feet, especially on the north side. Tonight and tomorrow we will have widespread showers, and winds should build from the west to 15-20 mph, perhaps a bit more in gusts. Seas will be 5-6 feet, and waves should be around 5 feet all the way to Ceiba. Tomorrow night into Wednesday morning we have a good chance of rain (the Euro especially thinks Tuesday night and Wednesday morning will be rainy, the GFS less so). On Wednesday, seas should start around 5 feet here, around 4 feet near Ceiba, but should calm a bit during the day to 3-4 feet here and and 2 feet near Ceiba by evening.
Starting Thursday we will have dry and windy weather, with winds especially in the evenings from the east 20-25 mph, through Monday. Have a great week!

Dec. 25, 2022: Good morning, Roatan! Yesterday many locations got between 1.5 and 2 inches, but the big winners were Politilly with 3.45 inches and Punta Blanca with 3.17. Utila got a little less than an inch. Our winds have taken a slight turn to the north, though they are generally light this morning. The north side is definitely wavier than normal, with the Sandy Bay buoy giving a reading of about 5 feet (1.7 meters) this morning. Surf on the south side is about 4 feet this morning.

The rain is mostly staying to our north and today looks drier than yesterday, though there will still be a chance of a scattered shower. Winds will be fairly mild, 5-10 mph out of the northeast. Seas should stay 4-5 feet today. Tonight we will again have a chance of a thundershower and tomorrow we will have a mix of sun and clouds and a 60 percent chance of seeing a shower during the day.

Tuesday should be the rainiest day of the week with some downpours much like we saw yesterday afternoon. Monday and Tuesday morning will be the waviest, with seas 4-5 feet from Roatan all the way to Ceiba.

Wednesday rain will be more scattered and starting Thursday we should be mostly sunny and the winds start picking up from the east. We will have a mostly dry and windy start to 2023.

Dec. 24, 2022: Good morning, Roatan! We are dealing with some showers in advance of our cold front at 7:30 a.m. Around the island we’ve averaged about half an inch of rain overnight. We’ll be in and out of the showers today, though we should see some moments of sun as well. Winds will be from the east/northeast at 5-10 mph and gusting around squalls. Seas should be around 3 feet (1 meter)

Tonight scattered rain continues with the possibility of a thunderstorm.

Tomorrow rain continues, sometimes heavy, with light and variable winds, except in squalls, but as the front gets closer, we should see waves get up to around 4 feet, especially on the north side. Tomorrow night the chance of a thunderstorm returns.

Monday we begin to feel a bit of the chill of fresh winds. Right now it doesn’t look like we will have bad north winds on the island, but because they will be so close, Monday will be the worst day on the seas with waves around 5 feet, especially on the north side, and 4 feet toward La Ceiba. Monday and Tuesday should be our coolest mornings, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some 69 degree readings.

On Tuesday the rain continues, but the seas should improve a bit, to around three feet, both here and in Ceiba. Rain comes to an end during the day on Wednesday and Thursday we clear out and easterly winds begin to pick up, getting pretty gusty into next weekend. Have a safe holiday weekend and stay away from those firecrackers.

Dec. 23, 2022: Good morning, Roatan. Trying to forecast what the weather will be in a few days is difficult. But guess what? Knowing what the weather is right now is also difficult. Our current cold front illustrates that point. It is important to know how strong it is right now to know how strong it might be when (and if) it reaches us. And the fact is we don’t know exactly how strong it is right now. To illustrate, I am posting the current wind conditions from three different weather models:

Notice how at the same location in the Gulf of Mexico, there is a 10 mph difference in how strong these models believe the winds is RIGHT NOW! That has big implications for how strong the winds will be when they get here. As you probably know, cold front weaken the further south they go. That is why it is never much below 65 (18C) degrees here. Notice how big a difference that makes in our winds when the front arrives Monday morning.

Note that the GFS has the front basically stalling to our north on Monday morning and bringing us only wind gusts of 10 mph, really a pretty calm day. There is some wind to our north which would probably give the north side seas of 2-3 feet (.6-1 meters), but definitely nothing out of the ordinary.

The Euro shows the front stalling just barely to our north, which brings a little gustier winds here at 17 mph, but also brings the winds closer, giving the north side heavier seas, probably around 5 feet (1.6 meters) if this were to happen.

The ICON gets the cold front all the way here, with gusts near 30 mph. This would probably also mean much cooler temperatures and heavier rain for us, if this were to happen.

So there you have three scenarios. The GFS and the Euro are generally the most reliable models and they have been showing the front weakening more, so if I had to lean one way, I’d say this norther will probably not be as bad as we thought it might be. I’ll do the best I can to post a forecast in the next posting. 

Dec. 22, 2022: Good morning, Roatan! Many of us had a shower yesterday around 8 a.m. that gave us a tenth to a quarter of an inch of rain.
Enjoy today and tomorrow, because after that the weather gets a LOT stormier.
Today and tomorrow we will have sunny skies, east winds 5-10 mph and seas about 2 feet.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day there will be a good chance of rain and even thunderstorms, especially Saturday night into Sunday morning. Winds should be fairly mild, but on Sunday they will be beginning to come out of the north.

Saturday seas should be 2-3 feet, but less as you go toward La Ceiba.

Sunday seas will be 3-4 feet, not so much because of winds but because of swell coming out of the north.

Monday and Tuesday will be days when we should see some strong north winds and high seas, especially on the north side, around 5-6 feet and 4 foot seas all the way to La Ceiba.

Many of the models are keeping us in the rain all the way into Thursday, when things will get better for New Year’s weekend (though we will probably have some pretty strong easterly trade winds that weekend.)

Dec. 21, 2022: Good morning, Roatan! We stayed dry last night and this morning we have some passing clouds, and a small chance of a passing shower this morning. Today, Thursday and Friday will be mostly sunny with east winds about 5-10 mph and seas 1-2 feet and overnights we will have a small chance of a shower and winds around 15 mph with seas 2-3 feet.

Friday night into the weekend our rain chances go up, but the models are holding back the strong north winds until sometime Monday, Tuesday or even possibly Wednesday (especially in the Euro forecast). Saturday and especially Sunday winds should be fairly moderate except in squalls, but especially Sunday there should be a little swell, which are waves caused by winds further away. That should give the north side 2-3 foot sea Sunday. There is still a good chance we will be dealing with some heavy seas Sunday night into Monday and Tuesday, especially on the north side. Through the entire period Saturday through Tuesday, rainfall totals should be in the 3-4 inch range with a few locally higher amounts. Have a great Wednesday!