myTobago – your questions, review and comment about Tobago

Well the Carnival is over,and I am now fully recovered from Jouvert,Mas and chill down!The weather all week has been well behaved-hot but with a refreshing breeze.
I must now start to brace myself for my return to Cornwall next Friday ,so Paul give me the bad news!
David (but returning on Nov 30 )

David

The good news is that Cornwall should be nice and mild and wet by the time you get home.

There is no bad news because the weather could not be worse than it is now ... as I write it is snowing quite heavily in Yorkshire and it has been very cold for the last 2 weeks.

There has been some disruption down both the east and west sides of the UK with temperatures as low as -16 degrees C inland.

This cold weather should have moved away from Cornwall by the time you get home.

Even if it was raining in Tobago ... you would be on a good deal ... enjoy it while you can.

Regards

Thanks Paul,that lifted my gloom a little.It is another lovely day here,just a few clouds nothing to fret about.
David

David

You have just spent the thick end of 3 months in Tobago and you feel gloomy?

The weather in Tobago this week looks like the best you are going to get for the whole time you have stayed there.

The nearest cloud that I can see in the Sat Loops is over the Isle of Marguerita ... which is approximately 500 miles away.

Enjoy your last week.

Regards

A narrow band of showers is on the way from the west ... should arrive just before or around dusk.

Could be quite heavy ... but won't last long.

Regards

Paul,thanks for the good weather that you have arrnged for me this winter in Tobago.I leave here tomorrow evening ,so this will be my last from paradise(until November ).Yesterday was another good day,today is slightly overcast but not too bad.See you in UK at the weekend,David

Thanks David for your comments over the last couple of months its been good to get your view from "paradise".
Safe journey home.

David ... my sincere pleasure ...

... but most of all ... thank you very much for your 'on loco' insights.

It has been a pleasure to learn about Gibbous Moons ... the effects of mixing Carib with Rum ... and to learn that you really did not nick my underpants off that palm tree ... !!

You are lucky to have it overcast ... the real business is to the north and Grenada and Barbados have had some very heavy rain ... Tobago has got away with it.

Safe journey home ... as I predicted, it is just wet and windy in the UK ... nothing special.

Regards

Quick update on weather in Tobago and UK ... the UK point could be important and so I have posted this here rather than on Liquid Sunshine and delete it on Saturday morning before the weather event.


Tobago ...

There is still moisture coming off the mainland to the south. Tobago has been quite lucky to avoid the heavy rains that have affected Grenada and Barbados. The rain is now mostly light and there should be an improvement to the cloudiness towards the weekend.


The UK ...

I know that many travellers to and from Tobago catch their flights on a Saturday.

I feel that precautions are necessary for anyone travelling on Saturday to their airport, particularly those living in Eastern areas and anywhere from the Midlands northwards.

There will be alot of rain but this could turn to snow in the areas I have mentioned above. It will be mild in all other areas. The main risks appear to be after midday Saturday.

For those returning early Sunday morning, there will still be alot of rain around and the snow problem could continue well into Sunday ... be prepared the further north and east you expect to travel home from the airport.

Airports such as Gatwick, Manchester and Heathrow are unlikely to be affected ... this all depends where you are travelling from ... by road or rail ... I would advise an overnight stay near the airport to be on the safe side.

Having gone to the trouble of saying all this ... it may well only snow at higher levels but I am advising precautions at this stage ... be prepared if this could affect you.

Regards

Hello Paul

From the various news reports that I've seen, the "experts" are predicting yet another rough hurricane season. What are your thoughts on this ?
After all, your predictions/forecasting are yet to be beat.
Roger

Oh Lordy ... what a difficult question Roger.

It is so hard to predict.

Just one little thing tells me that it could be a 'quiet' season ... the sea surface temperatures (SST) have been quite low during the dry season.

It is the heat from the SST that feeds the storms ... this does not mean that there won't be any but what I mean is that perhaps there will not be so many severe storms in 2006.

Mark this one ... lets see if my view is right in December 2006 after the storms have gone.

Kind regards

Paul, somehow I believe you you've never failed us.

But I must ask yet another question It is true that the SST dictates how strong a hurricane becomes and if the SST's are not as high, then what are the "experts" using to predict the 2006 Atlantic Hurricane season
Roger

Hi Roger

El Nino needs sussing first ... extremely high SST's can reduce the chances of a major hurricane season (i.e.; there is an optimum SST temperature range).

El Nino is a yearly thing that can skew expectations ... the trend is for more Hurricane activity and there are numerous factors that say that this activity is increasing ... it has to be measured over a few years at least.

But to be honest ... it is quite impossible to predict the 'activity' for one year in isolation ... there could be a load of Tropical Storms (TS) and minor Hurricanes and yet it is the big ones that seems to remain ingrained in our minds when saying whether a season is bad or not.

If I talk exclusvely about Tobago ... many say that Tobago is too far south and close to the South American mainland to have much risk and ... true ... 1963 ... was the last direct hit.

2004 ... Hurricane Ivan (very close ... in fact, from my sat loop data, it was a gnat's penis away from serious widespread devastation [excuse my French]) in Tobago, being a Cat 4 at it's core.

2005 ... Dennis (direct hit but hurricane formation as it passed) plus another TS ... Emily, from recollection?

My view is that the 'hit zone' is widening ... the Hurricane experiences of recent years have not been direct/devastation hits but there have been other weather phenomena such as the Rain Storm of November 2004 that can dish out damage of respectable measure ... (i.e.; it is not just Hurricanes).

The writing could be on the wall and Tobago has had it lucky over the last 2 years ... see Grenada records for 2004 and 2005 to see how close (in terms of gnats' penii ... being the plural for penis [averaged of course !!]) the call can be.

The only good thing for Tobago is that the 2005 Storms never really got their act together until they sucked in the food of the Caribbean Sea.

We shall see.

I hope the Rum Punch experiments are progressing to your satisfaction.

Regards

Excellent explaination as always Paul

I think I'll petition Steve for a Royal Warrant for you -"By Appointment to mytobago.info - Paul Tallet Weather Extraordinaire"
How does that sound ?

As far as those rum punch experiments go - Somehow they do not work as well here in the U.S. as they do in Tobago. I swear that Island has some sort of magic - I can experiment away in Tobago and feel no pain, even the next day..hmmm.....might be worth checking into

Petition received, Roger. I would totally agree were it not for the sexist remarks about gnats. Why single out the poor gnat's anatomy as a measure of distance. Equal rights for gnats, thats what I say.

I beg your pardon, kind sir. Mr Tallet's invaluable and balanced contribution to this site over the may years should speak for itself

I think the "gnat problem" should be stricken from the record, it was only used as a measure of distance to show the close proximity of the storm's to Tobago and not used to invalidate the rights of the gnats. I move that he be pardoned for the "gnat and the infamous underpants issue"
Please take my argument under your kind consideration and issue the warrant.

Roger Q.C.

Thank you Roger

I am not clear about the gnat issue ... is it that I have made a sexist remark about male gnats or that I have been generally discriminatory towards gnats?

On one hand I guess I should have clarified that gnats' private parts were used as a descriptive means of trying to relate the proximity of a Hurricane to Tobago.

Gnats would probably derive some considerable reassurance from the fact that their private parts are indeed quite large relative to their overall body mass ... the fact that gnats are very small creatures seemed to make it appropriate to refer to their private parts in preference to the private parts of other animals that are larger and would therefore undermine the point I was trying to get across.

Perhaps more consideration could have been given to other gnat body parts such as their arms or heads but I sense that this could have led to inaccuracies in my efforts to give a reasonable idea of the proximity of a Hurricane to Tobago ... private parts seemed to be the closest match and, accordingly, the most appropriate in this instance.

I fully accept that gnats may be quite sensitive to these issues and that other similar sized and less sensitive creatures could have been used for the purpose of the discussion but I sense that all Gnats will be proud to see that this topic has raised the profile of their species that has often been overlooked as a conduit for rational and objective discussion.

I trust that this clarifies the position.

Kind regards

Rights for gnats?
Seems all very PC to me!

What ever next?
The sand fly liberation front , or mozzies against citronella?

Maybe we should just put the gnats inside Paul's underpants and call it quits.

What a pleasure to see a nice bit of banter on the site again, after some of the more serious and argumentative matters recently - keep it up guys