Rainfall:
In June, it started to rain on a regular basis on our islands. The wettest day during that month at the rainfall station of the Meteorological Service at Hato Airport was the 21st, when 35.4 mm was measured there. June 11 too was a rather wet day with 12.7 mm at Hato.
The month ended at Hato with a sum of 75 mm. That’s about four times as wet as the average of 19.3 mm. Comparative amounts of rain were observed elsewhere in Curaçao. The amount of rain measured at Hato however was no new record. Not too long ago, an amount of 91.4 mm of rain was measured in June 2005. The wettest June in the past 50 years however was the one of 1966, when as much as 103.4 mm was measured there.
An amount of 49.4 mm was measured during June 2010 at the Queen Beatrix Airport in Aruba. Although this is less compared to Curaçao, this amount of rain is still almost three times as much as the June average of 17.7 mm at this station. Bonaire also had an amount of precipitation which was well above the long-term average. At the Flamingo Airport the monthly sum in June 2010 was 46.9 mm. That’s a little more than three times wetter than the June average of 14.4 mm.
At the Princess Juliana Airport in St. Maarten, more rain fell as usual in June than in the ABC Islands. The monthly sum during the month reached 113.6 mm. This is almost double the June average amount for this location (61.8 mm).
The observed amounts of rain in our islands confirm well the long-term rainfall outlook issued earlier this year. In that outlook, it was expected that the second quarter of this year would become wetter than average over the southern and eastern Caribbean Area. The latest outlook indicates that the second half of this year will also be wetter than average in the ABC Islands. The expected rainfall in the SSS Islands is expected to be closer to the long-term average.
Hurricane Season 2010:
As was announced earlier, an above average amount of tropical cyclones is expected to develop this year over the Atlantic Basin. This region covers the north Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
The first month of the season (June) is behind us and during the final week the first tropical cyclone of the season developed. This system formed over the northwestern Caribbean Area and eventually strengthened to become the first hurricane of the season over the western Gulf of Mexico during the evening of June 29.
It was named Alex. Less than 24 hours after that, Alex made landfall over the east coast of Mexico as a category two hurricane. The tropical cyclone thereafter weakened rapidly to a tropical depression, as it moved further inland and dissipated during the morning of Thursday July 1. Reports in the media indicate that six casualties fell in northeastern Mexico as a result of especially heavy rain caused by Alex.