SPI Monitor June 2010
Disclaimer
The information contained herein is provided with the understanding that The Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology makes no warranties, either expressed or implied, concerning the accuracy, completeness, reliability, or suitability of the Outlook. The information may be used freely by the public with appropriate acknowledgement of its source, but shall not be modified in content and then presented as original material.
Discussion
June 2010
Rainfall in the eastern Caribbean chain ranged from near normal to very wet. Most of Trinidad and Guyana experienced near normal conditions (in the negative) as well as Grenada and Anguilla. Tobago, St. Vincent, Dominica and St. Kitts were moderately wet. Barbados, St. Lucia and Antigua and Barbuda were very wet. Both The Dominican Republic and Jamaica experienced normal to moderately wet conditions. Cayman Islands was normal whilst Belize ranged from normal for the most part to moderately wet in the southern portion of the country.
April 2009 to June 2010
Grenada, Barbados, St. Kitts, Antigua and Barbuda and most of Trinidad (the south west portion being normal) were moderately wet. St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Dominica were very wet, whilst Tobago was extremely wet. Anguilla and most of Guyana experienced normal conditions. The Dominican Republic and Cayman Islands were normal. Jamaica was moderately wet just like the north and eastern portions of Belize. The west and southern portions of Belize were very wet.
January 2009 to June 2010
Apart from Tobago that was very wet, from Guyana northward to St. Lucia experienced near normal conditions. Dominica and St. Kitts were moderately wet, whilst Antigua and Barbuda and Anguilla were near normal. The Dominican Republic and Cayman Islands were near normal. The majority of Jamaica was moderately wet. Belize was generally near normal.
July 2009 to June 2010
The 12 month period was extremely dry for Grenada. The remainder of the islands in the chain were near normal. The northern portion of Guyana was normal whilst the south was moderately dry for the period. Apart from the north-eastern portion of the country that was moderately dry, the Dominican Republic was near normal. Jamaica and Cayman Islands were also near normal, whilst Belize ranged from normal in the south to very wet in the north.
The maps produced used SPI values calculated from monthly rainfall totals from land stations and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data. Only land station data is used for the eastern Caribbean , described here as from Georgetown Guyana in the south to Anguilla in the north. The Greater (and Western) Antilles is less represented by land stations. However efforts are being made to include more land stations from that part of the region. Note that the severity implied by the index is relative to what is normal for that period of consideration. Normal in the drier season reflects less rainfall than in the wetter season.
