BVI to get National Meteorological Service
The government is taking steps to establish a national meteorological service in the BVI.
Currently, the Antigua National Meteorological Service provides these services to the Virgin Islands through the Department of Disaster Management (DDM).
But the minister responsible for meteorology Kye Rymer said because of climate change and severe weather patterns, it is now time to establish a local office with increased capacity.
“The Ministry of Communications & Works is developing a national meteorological office to provide efficient and timely movement of meteorological information, which is necessary to provide forecasted data about weather conditions that can affect safety and improve sustainability,” Rymer stated.
The minister said several ministry personnel from the Airports Authority and the DDM recently met with a team from the Caribbean Meteorological Organisation where they started discussions on implementing a national meteorological service here in the territory.
With the commencement of non-stop flights from the US to the BVI, the minister pointed out that meteorological services are vital as severe weather patterns affect air transport operations.
“Severe or extreme weather events, climate variability, and projected climate scenarios can affect the aviation industry’s safety, efficiency, and profitability in the Virgin Islands. Therefore, developing a national meteorological service through a dedicated office is crucial to efficiently and effectively achieving several of the National Sustainable Development Plan’s national outcomes,” Minister Rymer said.
He also pointed out that areas such as tourism, fishing, the marine environment, agriculture, aviation, and other services, which are all affected by the territory’s weather and climate conditions, stand to benefit from the new meteorological office.
Minister Rymer also emphasised that an office of national meteorological services in the Virgin Islands would improve weather observations and forecasting, provide data for infrastructure planning, and issue warnings and alerts for hydro-meteorological hazards.
“It would also maintain a historical record and provide relevant advice on national weather, climate, water, and environmental data issues for decision-making by the public and private sectors,” Rymer noted.
He added that the Caribbean Meteorological Organisation will support the BVI in developing the national meteorological service, as it has done in other CARICOM countries.
Copyright 2024 BVI News, Media Expressions Limited. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed.
A waste of money and resources. Fix the roads. Fix the water problem. Do these things and stop the cosmetic work that you keep doing. You could tell everything about the weather anywhere from your iPhone. Pure crap!
KYE CANT EVEN KEEP THE WATER AND POWER ON ON A DAILY BASIS
Another waste of money. there is already Radar over the BVI available online. Flights are processed through San Juan FAA, not locally. Put Money into education , schools, clinics and roads. Not another Government office that does nothing.
provides all the weather info that the Virgin Islands will ever need. Met office here is unnecessary, superfluous and a waste of money and time.
Seems like an unnecessary expense. Why does a place this small and so close to better resourced neighbours need to do this?
Use the old cable & wireless weather station at Charwell
Pretentious bovine feces which may or may not happen and will be forgotten out of service and obsolete even before it is installed.
In the meantime,how about a timely and current update or reminder on the status of the deadly dysfunctional garbage incinerator at Pockwood Pond.
This is nice but fix the roads and make sure people have water to bathe their skin with. We doing everything else but the things that matter.
Why does the Territory (population 35,000+/-) need a national weather service? The only major threat we have are hurricanes.
There’s any number of good and reliable resources: US National Weather Service, NOAA, Windy, Passage Weather, Wind Guru come to mind. All are free and certainly would provide adequate notice of hurricanes and such.. Many offer very detailed forecasts for a modest premium if one needs more granular detail.
The US/UK has a national weather service, so should we. Is that the logic? Surely the priority is to fix roads, schools, electricity supply, waste disposal, deal with narco traffickers, create futures for our youths, etc.