Over the past few days or couple of weeks, we’ve noticed a significant reduction in rainfall across the island, in particular, across the St. Philip, Christ Church, and St. Lucy areas. The dry conditions, dry air, and abundance of sunshine is actually leading to a lot of drying out of the top soils across the island, and a lot of areas are actually turning brown in fields and cane fields, etc.
So, I know a lot of residents have noticed a lot of cane fires or grass fires that have been going on in the past few days. And today in particular, it was a really busy day for the guys at the Barbados Fire Service. There were a number of grass fires, which sparked off in the Christ Church and St. Philip areas, and perhaps some parts of St. John. When these fires start on the eastern side of the island or the south eastern side…the smoke would actually travel down into the Bridgetown area, and some of those fires actually last for a good few hours throughout today and some of the others from the other days as well.
So, this is going to make life a bit unpleasant for residents in Barbados, particularly those living in St. Michael and working in the Bridgetown area. We expect that these kind of conditions are going to continue into March and into April with the dry conditions, particularly around St. Philip, Christ Church, and St. Lucy, in particular, with a lesser extent into St. George and St. John. You will get these grass fires and cane fires sparking off because of the dry conditions.
There is not going to be any rainfall that is going to be coming in anytime soon. And so I just want all Barbadians to be aware that you can expect to see the possibility of more fires in the days to come and just be ready and be prepared. This is not an uncommon thing to actually happen during the dry season, but I guess like what happened today, the number of fires is probably unprecedented and also the duration of the fires.
So, our best advice to all the public out there is just to be aware that these things are going to happen in the next few weeks, and the possibility, and just be ready. For those who have respiratory challenges, just walk with the necessary medications and take the necessary precautions to protect yourself over the next few weeks.
Looking into the future, our forecast is basically, like I said, March is going to be really dry. We are going to see a slight increase in April, in terms of precipitation, and more so in May, especially going into the ending part of May, and we should have a lot more relief in the early part of June as well.
Director of the Barbados Meteorological Service, Sabu Best