By Machela Osagboro
Heavy rainfall is expected to continue across Antigua and Barbuda into Tuesday of this week as a ‘bomb cyclone’, which stretched across the Atlantic, caused large swells of water and high gusts of winds across the region.
Winds reached to a range of 25 to 45 (16 to 28 mph) over the weekend.
A high surf warning for the northern half of the country has been in effect and will continue until Tuesday as conditions have become extremely hazardous.
Meteorologist and Climatologist Dale Destin said that the bomb cyclone had an extensive cold front and “the weather that we have been having is indirectly tied to the cyclone, in that the cyclone has a very extensive cold front associated with it. This cold front stretches for thousands of miles across the Atlantic. And this is in fact what is causing the cloudy conditions and the on and off rainfall in Antigua and Barbuda”.
Destin added that the winds have increased and are expected to continue to do so, therefore a small craft advisory is still in effect for mariners and fishermen.
“We are advising persons to stay out of the water. Clearly, conditions are extremely hazardous and we wouldn’t want any issues to occur as a result of persons trying to brave this sort of hazardous beach going conditions.”
The cyclone itself has moved away from the Caribbean and is now near Greenland.
However, the large hurricane force winds which it produced, pushed “large battering waves to the shores of the Caribbean. Those waves have now arrived. Where they materialise near the coast as breaking waves or high surfs”, Destin said. Swells were forecast to exceed 3.5 meters (12 feet) and break at higher heights on the coastlines.
On Saturday, the weather bomb packed category 1 hurricane force winds that smashed against the coastline areas of the country.