CDEMA calls for Caribbean to Strengthen Preparedness for 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season

The Barbados-based Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) Wednesday called on Montserrat and other Caribbean states to be fully prepared for the 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season that gets under way on Sunday June 1.

CDEMA executive director, Elizabeth Riley, reminded regional media practitioners that in 2024, the Caribbean had to deal with Hurricane Beryl, a category five storm, within days of the start of the hurricane season.

She laments that these are some of the possibilities that the climate scientists have said were going to be possible... and now the region is seeing it and there is a likelihood that this trend will continue with these types of very different patterns in how the cyclones are taking place with a lot of diversity, not only in the cyclones, but also in severe weather.

Riley emphasizes the point that it is important to follow the science, listen to the guidance from the climate scientists and also to learn from previous events.

The CDEMA Executive Director adds that with Beryl, for instance, happening so early in the season in 2024, all of the national emergency coordinators across the region are very mindful of this.

Riley told reporters that in some islands, a “political direction” had been given to complete those preparedness actions “as early as the end of April.

There are 21 named storms for this year’s hurricane season and last week, regional forecasters predicted a “potentially intense, but erratic” 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, saying the frequency of Saharan dust will affect cyclone formation even as they noted that storms could form between these dust episodes.

Climatologist at the Barbados-based Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH), Cédric Van Meerbeeck, said CIHM has 70 per cent confidence in its forecast that there will be 19 named storms, with nine becoming hurricanes and four of them major hurricanes, but noted that the forecast will be updated later in the hurricane season.

He noted that the annual average is 14 named storms, with seven becoming hurricanes and three major hurricanes, during the season that runs from June 1 to November 30.

Riley said as the region prepares for the hurricane season, it is once again reminded of its vulnerability and the ongoing need for preparedness.