Weather and Climate:

Today's Forecast:

Climate:

The overall climate of the British Virgin Islands and especially Virgin Gorda is semi-arid. Trade winds constantly blow from the east to the west throughout the year which makes for a very comfortable atmosphere. The air is fresh due to the 3,000 miles of ocean that the trade winds traverse before hitting Virgin Gorda.

Thanks to the generosity of the Caribbean weather centre www.caribwx.com we have included three charts which layout the average monthly temperatures, rainfall and sunlight hours for BVI. The chart with Highs and Lows is from the Weather Channel.

Temperature and Humidity:

The red bars indicate the average high temperature for a particular month and the blue bars the average low temperature for the month. The green line is the average overall for each month. As you can see the temperature doesn’t vary much month to month or over the year.

Here is another chart with monthly averages and the record highs and lows in degrees Fahrenheit:

Average temperatures and rainfall of Tortola, British Virgin Islands

Month	Average high	Average low	Record High	Record low	Average precipitation
January	79	68	91	62	2.92
February	80	67	89	60	2.49
March	82	68	89	60	2.18
April	84	69	95	62	3.33
May	85	71	93	64	4.59
June	86	73	95	65	2.78
July	87	73	95	66	3.27
August	87	73	96	66	4.40
September	86	73	95	61	6.14
October	85	72	92	64	5.25
November	82	71	91	63	7.04
December	80	69	87	60	4.40

Temperature is measured in degrees Fahrenheit

Rainfall is measured in inches

Monthly Rainfall and Average rain per day:

The pink bars indicate the number of days, on average, each month, that there is some recorded rainfall measured against the left hand index. The measurements come from the mountain side on Tortola; Tortola receives more rain than Virgin Gorda.

Hours of Sunlight:

The red bars indicate the average sunset time for the month whiled the black bars indicate the average sunrise. Because Virgin Gorda is located at 18 degrees north latitude we get less sunlight in the summer months than Northern countries, states and provinces.

A note about risk of impact of Hurricanes in any given location:

Meteorologists and media sources often hype nasty Tropical weather, and indeed, the destruction caused by an intense Hurricane is awesome. But I can't tell you how many e-mails we receive from folks after a storm, asking if a certain Island they're traveling to sustained damage...when the Hurricane did not pass anywhere near that Island. Probably many more folks cancel their vacation plans, or simply don't travel to the Caribbean in summer or fall.

Let's just examine the popular vacation grounds from the Virgin Islands to the Leeward and Windward islands, which encompass the entire “Lesser Antilles" of the E Caribbean. These Islands scribe an arc across the Eastern Caribbean.

The Eastern Caribbean is approximately 600 miles long and 60 miles wide, covering about 36,000 sq miles of ocean. The whole Caribbean Basin is much larger, stretching over 1500 mi from E to W, and about 600 mi N to S, or an area about 900,000 sq mi. The average Tropical LO (if there is such a thing), may cover an area at any given time of about 200 mi diameter with Tropical Storm Force winds, damage from which can usually be cleaned-up in a matter of hours or days, and stronger Hurricane Force winds over a smaller area, maybe a 40 miles diameter. That makes the average North American snow storm a much larger event.

If you hear that "a Hurricane passed through the Eastern Caribbean", there's about a 1-in-3 chance your vacation destination in the Eastern Caribbean saw Tropical Storm Force winds, which cause little-or-no damage, and less than 1-chance-in-10 that your destination saw Hurricane Force winds, and a much lower chance, say 1-in-30, that a specific location saw winds over 100 knots. which may cause severe damage. The Caribbean is a huge area, most Hurricanes are relatively-small, and there's only a slight chance our destination was impacted.

In the Eastern Caribbean from June to December, the risk of seeing Tropical Storm Force winds on any given day, at any given location is less than 1-in-500, with a good chance for pleasant weather on the other days of your trip. Your risk of seeing Hurricane Force winds on any given day, at any given location may be about 1-in-2000, with a good chance for pleasant weather on the other days of your trip. Your risk of experiencing strong and destructive winds over 100 knots is less than 1-in-5000.

The Eastern Caribbean only experiences less-than-1 such event each year, lasting less-than-1 day as it passes.

Given the small risk that a Hurricane will impact your plans, you might consider taking advantage of off-season rates, and using some of your savings from the lower rates to purchase travel insurance. And of course, check the Marine Forecast daily for the latest weather forecast.

Our own experience is that hurricane paths tend to be narrow and many “peter out” before ever striking landfall. In addition, the BVI’s are out from the Caribbean Sea and the waters tend not to be quite as warm as closer in to Mexico and Florida. Good, up to date, information about hurricane activity is available at http://caribwx.mwxc.com/latest.html and at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo_atl.shtml