May 28, 2009 – It may seem hot, it may seem hazy and residents and tourists alike are sick of swatting mosquitoes, but except for the mosquitoes, this is typical May weather, meteorologist Ernesto Morales said Thursday from the National Weather Service's San Juan office.
"There's a high pressure in our area," he said.
Although it's been a rainy month, Morales said residents across the Virgin Islands shouldn't see much in the way of showers for the next couple of days.
As for the haze, Morales said that it's coming across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa. It's the usual Sahara dust.
"It's very stable air and it has particles of dust," he said.
It's hot because the wind has been blowing out of the south, but Morales expects it to shift around to the southeast and then east before it returns to a southerly direction.
"Winds from the south are a little warmer," Morales said.
May got off with a deluge that caused flooding, rockslides and downpour conditions on May 4. While rain totals across the territory varied by location, Weather Station Zephyr at Ajax Peak, St. John had 3.25 inches of rain that day.
With three days left to go in May, Weather Station Zephyr recorded 4.92 inches of rain so far this month.
Last May had only .66 inches of rain and May 2007 saw 1.51 inches, but in May 2006, 5.23 inches fell. In May 2005, the total stood at 3.59 inches, and in May 2004, 4.86 inches fell.
As for the mosquitoes that sprang to life about nine days after the May 4 rain, they've abated quite a bit, but residents and visitors are not out of the woods yet.
"I think we're starting to see a little secondary bloom," Rafe Boulon, chief of resource management at V.I. National Park, said.
The mosquitoes that hatched during the second week in May have laid their eggs and those eggs are now hatching. However, Boulon said this outbreak won't be as bad as the last.
As if the rain and mosquitoes weren't enough to deal with, hurricane season starts in four days. The first tropical system of the season, Tropical Depression 1, formed Thursday off the mid-Atlantic coast. It's tracking northeast off the coast and will pose no threat to the Caribbean. If it becomes a named storm as forecasters predict, it will be called Ana.
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