Upcoming weather in St John not looking good?! :0

gores95 · Post by **gores95** » Wed Oct 29, 2014 4:05 pm

I know long range forecasts are iffy at best but this is the first time I have seen such an ugly long range forecast with 60-70% chance of rain EVERY day. I didn't see any tropical activity or development predicted but like I said the forecast is downright ugly. Is anyone there now and can comment on this? Thanks!

http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/VIVIIS:13

david@va.beach · Post by **david@va.beach** » Wed Oct 29, 2014 8:21 pm

yeah,.. it's going to be bad..now just give me those tickets...

Coconuts · Post by **Coconuts** » Wed Oct 29, 2014 9:13 pm

gores95: Chances are that you will have excellent weather during your stay. http://www.weather.com is largely clueless regarding the VI; yes, a shower somewhere, sometime is likely, but I don't see anything on deck to justify their dour forecast. There is a large clump of angry stuff to the northeast, but its path is northwestwards, after which it will break up.
http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ge ... mframes=11
A poster a few weeks ago had similar concerns, and from what I could gather from our guests, the Spice Cam, and her trip report, everything turned out fine, despite weather.com's bleak "forecast" for her.
http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/v ... FGP0kud7wI
http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/v ... FGQCEud7wI

Hang in there; all is likely to be well.

All the best,

Kevin

mahojim · Post by **mahojim** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 7:38 am

david@va.beach wrote:yeah,.. it's going to be bad..now just give me those tickets...

damn...you beat me to the punch...
Smiles-
MJ

gores95 · Post by **gores95** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 9:32 am

LOL we're not giving up those tickets....EVER! I get long range forecasts are fickle but like I said I've been spot checking the forecasts for over a month and suddenly yesterday I checked and was floored with all the rain predicted. This will be our third time in the USVI so I will just keep calm and pray for lots of sun!

nikkiki · Post by **nikkiki** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 10:23 am

LALALALALALALA.....I've got my fingers in my ears and my eyes squished shut, and I'm chanting to myself "no problemo, no problemo, no problemo". A rainy day in St. John is better than a cold and blustery day in Chicago!

kklay · Post by **kklay** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 10:49 am

Our weather man is predicting some SNOW tomorrow evening with winds around 20 MPH. I can't wait to get to STJ in 23 days, rain or sun!

lorijo068 · Post by **lorijo068** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 9:47 am

31 days and we will be arriving at Coconuts!!! Absolutely can not wait!! See you all soon!

nikkiki · Post by **nikkiki** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 9:55 am

kklay, we had a little bit of snow this morning during my commute. So not ready for this.

ifloat · Post by **ifloat** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 1:12 pm

Rain no problem. Can drink Rum from a sippy cup with lid.

shoemak38 · Post by **shoemak38** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 4:10 pm

Hope this is not somebody's boat I guess it's a barometer of how much rain has fallen. The weather gods will promise sunny skies. If you sacrifice a couple bottles of rum your first night there

Snagit Capture by SHOEMAK38, on Flickr

Coconuts · Post by **Coconuts** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 10:01 pm

Well, while my comments earlier in this thread on the accuracy of Weather.com's VI rain forecasts are generally valid, this time around they were right, and I was wrong. Weather in the VI is almost always sunny and fine, with two notable exceptions: once in the spring, between mid April and late May, and once again each fall, between late October and early December. Sometime within those two periods, a week of sustained unsettled weather and heavy rain is likely, with heavy weather streaming northwards from South America as the prevailing winds shift from their summer to winter patterns, and then back again. St. John is experiencing one of these weeks right now. The VI-Alert system began sending out flash flood warnings on Tuesday, and today extended these through early Saturday. Nearly 3.5" of rain has fallen today, with another 2 inches earlier this week. The cisterns are happy; the visitors, understandably less so. The NASA satellite video loop may clear by Saturday, but has looked like this now and for the last four days:
http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ge ... mframes=11
A St. John weather station in Estate Bethany (outside Cruz Bay), ID not published, gracefully shares their weather data via Weather Underground; here is a screen grab from today. The fourth graph is precipitation.

: Friday weather

Here is a link to this station, but when you click on it, make sure that the date for the weather display is current, and the display is set to Daily; if it isn't, update the date, and display period, and then click the View button to the right of the date field:
http://maps.wunderground.com/personal-w ... C2#history

All the best,

Kevin

AquaGirl · Post by **AquaGirl** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 3:13 pm

Question for Kevin and other weather-knowledgeable types:

Is there any way to "see" the period of sustained unsettled weather and heavy rain in a forecast? When we are going to do a last minute trip, I dutifully look at the NHC website to see if there are any disturbances coming over from Africa that may (or may not) cause bad weather. Clearly, this won't show the April/May or Oct/Nov bad weather pattern as described. I was just wondering if they can (somewhat) accurately forecast this type of weather. We experienced a week of cool-ish temps with daily downpours, high winds, flooded roads and heavy overcast in April some years ago. Since we are avid snorkelers, a full week of bad weather was not fun.

I also usually check wunderground, rather that NWS. When we were on Virgin Gorda in Oct for 10 days, the wunderground forecast was amazingly accurate, including times of rain showers. I'm sure they have faulty forecasts at times too.

Thanks for the info.

Coconuts · Post by **Coconuts** » Mon Nov 10, 2014 11:01 pm

AG: Predicting when those stretches of unsettled weather will occur is tough, but if anybody could call it a week or so out, it would be http://www.wunderground.com. The trick is, everybody not on an impulse trip will have locked their flights and villa in long before, so the value of knowing just before you come down is questionable. Mostly, we try and avoid the most likely times in those two periods, as well as the third week in April; low season starting at many villas and school break really draw the crowds.

All the best,

Kevin

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