HOLIDAY WEATHER: THE CARIBBEAN* By C. G. SMITH

Oxford

NE attraction of the Caribbean as a winter holiday destination for Europeans is the 0 certainty of warmth and abundant sunshine. This has long been one of its main attractions for North American tourists. for even Florida and New Mexico suffer from occasional cold snaps in winter as Arctic Continental air sweeps southwards across the continent. The high sea surface temperatures of the Caribbean are not only warm enough for comfortable swimming all year round but they rapidly modify cold continental air coming out of North America. Only western Cuba and the northern islands of the Bahamas are sufficiently near the continent to experience temperatures below 10°C for a few days in winter and spring; elsewhere in the Caribbean a minimum temperature below 15°C is very rarely experienced. On the other hand during the summer high sun period temperatures rarely rise above 35°C and maximum temperatures above 40°C are unknown.

For guaranteed warmth and sunshine in the European winter only upper Egypt and West African destinations such as the Gambia and Sierra Leone are nearer. These last two countries at one time enjoyed the unenviable reputation of being 'the white man's grave' and it is a measure of how disease control and air-conditioning have altered things that they now appear in the package tour brochures. However, they d o not yet possess the reputation, tradition and facilities that make Jamaica, the Bahamas and Barbados popular tourist destinations. The principal islands in the Caribbean are shown on the location map opposite. The more popular islands for tourists are the Bahamas, Jamaica, Antigua, Nevis, Martinique, St Lucia, Barbados and Tobago. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are popular with American visitors while recently Bonaire Island in the Netherlands Antilles has developed tourism. Despite political and economic problems Cuba is now a destination for some package tours. All the islands in the Caribbean are over 6000 kilometres from Europe and the tourist industry there is largely dependent on the North American market; for these reasons a holiday there is not cheap.

THE CARIBBEAN ISLANDS

The islands are scattered over an extensive area between latitudes 26"N and 10"N and all share a particularly oceanic variety of tropical climate with both a small diurnal and annual temperature range. There is a surprising uniformity about the weather and climate of these islands; the main variable is the amount of annual rainfall both from place-to-place and year-to-year. The mean annual rainfall varies considerably from island to island and even from one side of an island to the other, depending on relief and exposure to the prevailing north-easterly Trade Winds. There is rather less difference in the number of wet days or the period of the main rainy season. On islands with mountains exceeding lo00 or 2000 metres in altitude such as Jamaica, St Lucia, Martinique and Guadeloupe the annual rainfall may exceed 5000mm in the higher areas and be as much as 2000mm on windward coasts, but such heavy falls are not representa- tive of the majority of tourist destinations at or near sea level. On low-lying islands or sheltered coasts a rainfall of 600 to 1 OOOmm is more typical. The wettest months in the Caribbean are usually from May to October, and the driest December to March. During the rainy season there may be as many as 15 to 20 days with rain per month. However, much rain falls in heavy thundery showers often in the afternoon or evening so that a day with rain may have several hours of sunshine. In the drier season there may be an average of between five and ten wet days per month.

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*Thi\ is the tourth article in a series on wearher in popular holidav destinations. The intere\ted reader is referred to 7hr U'orld U'eorher Guide hy E. A. Pearce and C. G. Smith (reviewed in Nwcmher 1984 U'cwrher) on nhich the article5 i re hased.

Relative humidity is moderately high around the year but daily sea breezes and a generally brisk prevailing wind moderate the sensible temperature so that the heat is rarely oppressive. During the cooler months night minimum temperatures are usually in the range 15" to 20°C. During the warmer months they are likely to be as high as 23" to 25OC and a cloudy night with little wind may feel sticky to those more accustomed to temperate climes. Considering the amount of rain and the number of wet days the annual hours of sunshine are surprisingly high on most Caribbean islands. They range from about 2600 hours to as much as 3000 on the drier islands. The winter visitor can usually expect an average of eight hours of sunshine per day from December to March. On some islands July and August are the sunniest months but, where it is wetter, March or April are the sunniest.

The most unpleasant and hazardous feature of the weather of the Caribbean is the hurricane. These violent tropical storms develop to the east of the area and track westwards across the Caribbean before curving north-eastwards approximately parallel to the coast of North America. Near the centre of a hurricane the violent winds and torrential rain may cause widespread damage and devastation and a more extensive area may suffer flooding from the heavy and prolonged rain. The hurricane season is from July to October but such storms can occur at any time from June to November. A particular island may go many years without experiencing the full force of a hurricane and on average about three per year occur somewhere in the Caribbean, but this number varies widely from year to year. The large average monthly rainfall of many islands from July to September is caused both by the occasional hurricane, which may drop 250 to 500mm of rain in a day, and the less violent tropical storms which do not develop to full hurricane intensity but are more frequent and may produce several days of heavy rain. The most southerly islands of the Caribbean, Trinidad, Tobago and the Netherlands Antilles, rarely experience hurricanes, but the remaining islands of the region all share this risk together with the coastal regions of Mexico, Texas, Florida and the southern Atlantic states of the USA. The author once heard a West Indian bishop describe hurricanes as one of the two scourges of his diocese; the other being the activities of schismatic religious sects of North American origin!

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