In the Caribbean, the 4 seasons pared down to 2

In the United States, we are used to having four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. Most people think of the Caribbean as being synonymous with year-round summer. They do not think of it as a place that has seasons but it does.

There is the dry season and a wet season. The dry season runs from about February to June. This is the most ideal time on the islands. There’s gorgeous weather with warm sunshine and the occasional tropical rain shower. During the wet season, July to January, there is less sunshine and more rain. Built into the wet season is the hurricane season that starts in June and ends in November.

The Caribbean winter is usually like a perpetual May. Overall, temperatures in the mid-80s prevail throughout most of the region, and trade winds make for comfortable days and nights, even without air conditioning.

According to one vacation website, different islands get different amounts of rain. For islands such as Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Lucia, Dominican Republic, Dominica and northeast Jamaica, winter is usually the driest season but even so the mountains are wet and they still experience brief showers in the afternoon. On other islands, you can have overcast skies during an entire vacation.

The planting season in the Caribbean is the end of the dry season.

An article done by Karla LeFevre in 2011 follows the research of Donovan Campbell, a geographer from the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. Campbell relocated from Kingston to St. Elizabeth in 2007 to work with farmers so that he could study the effects of the weather pattern on farming conditions. He concentrated on the small rural farmers who cultivate 3 or less acres and sold their produce locally.

These farms are in danger of disappearing because of the changes in the weather pattern, changes that have been gradual but are now becoming more prevalent and permanent. Droughts have caused water irrigation costs and supply costs to increase over the last couple of years. Read more

Source: Philadelphia Tribune