Acting Senior Met Officer, Marshall Alexander, is encouraging the public to make serious preparations for the 2021 Hurricane Season.
The Atlantic Hurricane Season extends officially from June 1st to November 30th annually and the prediction for this year is that an above-normal season is most likely.
It has been reported that this year’s hurricane season is comparable to that of 2017.
“The expectation is indeed comparable to what actually happened in 2017 where we actually saw 17 named storms, 10 hurricanes which occurred consecutively and we had 6 major hurricanes, so this means that we have to get serious with our preparation efforts and not take this prediction lightly,” Alexander said.
He continued, “As we saw in 2017 it only took one (1) system which was category 5 Hurricane Maria to disrupt our lives in Dominica.”
According to Alexander, forecasters predict a 60% chance of an above normal season, a 30% chance of a near- normal season and a 10% chance of a below-normal season, however, he pints out that they do not anticipate the historic level of storm activity seen in 2020.
“For 2021, a likely range of 13 to 20 named storms of which 6 to 10 could become hurricanes, including 3 to 5 major hurricanes expected,” the senior met official explained adding that based on this update, an average hurricane season would produce 14 named storms of which 7 become hurricanes, including 3 major hurricanes.
Meanwhile Alexander is calling on the general public to pay attention to the bulletins and advisories from the Office of Disaster Management (ODM) and the Dominica Meteorological Service.
“There is a process involved with the preparation of bulletin- when a bulletin is issued by the National Hurricane Shelter, for instance, we are able to look at that bulletin very closely and do our own analysis, we will reproduce that bulletin with special reference to Dominica, making that bulletin specific to Dominica, specifying distance, time of arrival…,” he said.
Alexander continued, “We try to do that in the shortest possible time, ensuring that we put out timely and authentic information which can be used by the public to make the right decisions to save lives and property.”
He said that a watch should be issued 48 hours before possible impact and a warning should be issued 36 hours before expected impact of a system.
“However, the timing may be less based on the situation at hand,” Alexander stated.
According to him, the Met office provides daily weather reports via the various radio stations. There is also a website, the URL for which is weather.gov.dm.
Furthermore, Alexander said an email signup service is also available on the website, as well as a telephone number- 1-767-449-1752 which is broadcast everyday during the weather reports.
“We do television programmes when necessary. We also have a Facebook page- Dominica Met. We also have a WhatsApp weather group,” he noted.
I hope you all are getting the Shelters ready. STOVES, Lamps, Water,Coffee ,
Hot Chocolate. Sugar. Oil. First aid kit. Extra blankets. Milk. Biscuits. Cots. Kettles.Gas. Table top stoves.
Go and build the lady’s roof in Church Lane and Pottersville and all around with tarpaulins still covering. SMH. This is not funny. Fix up. Help the elderly who are living in shambles. Build a shelter in Tarrou.
Well, one of Roosevelt’s puppet ministers made the claim that not many people in the country will need hurricane shelter this year.
I don’t know how he manage to come to such a conclusion, unless he is psychic, or has some extraordinary power to see into the feature!
Could it be because by now all human Dominicans have become resilient so even standing outside in a hurricane they’ll simply bend and return to their original position of standing?
Or, perhaps Roosevelt has already given a resilient built house to everyone, seeing that Dominica is the first and only resilient country in the world!