The Tribune

The Atlantic Ocean finally got its first hurricane of the season last week, when Danny passed the hurricane test with wind speeds in excess of 75 mph and a developed eye.

On Friday afternoon, the storm passed the Category 3 threshold, giving the Atlantic its first major hurricane and the eastern Caribbean - a region suffering from severe drought - a glimmer of hope that its reservoirs could be filled just a bit.

The major version of Danny was short-lived, as the storm weakened over the weekend and as a tropical storm was last night 165 miles east-south-east of Guadeloupe. With maximum sustained winds of 40mph it is forecast to bring two to four inches of rain to the Leeward Islands, the US and British Virgin Islands today and tomorrow.

Eventually, the storm could find its way to Puerto Rico on Tuesday, though by then it could have weakened further.

Danny has beaten long odds to reach hurricane status, let alone major hurricane status of Category 3 or greater. El Niño - a warming of the tropical Pacific that affects global weather and which tends to create strong wind shear that can tear Atlantic tropical storms apart - has conspired to put a damper on the Atlantic hurricane season to date. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has forecast a below normal hurricane season, which began on June 1, because of El Niño, which has continued to strengthen this summer.

The Caribbean is also currently home to a pocket of dry air that stretches to the Sahara desert. That dry air robs the storm of moisture it needs to intensify further and coming into contact with still drier air, it has weakened over the past two days.

Despite Hurricane Danny’s deficiencies, however, it’s been the little hurricane that could. For parts of the Caribbean, it could be a both a blessing and a curse. While damage is possible from Danny’s winds and rains, the eastern Caribbean also happens to be experiencing an intense drought so a little rain isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Forecasts show that parts of the eastern Caribbean could receive up to eight inches of rain by Wednesday night.

With the worst drought in five years creeping across the Caribbean and the region suffering a bone dry summer thanks to El Niño conspiring to keep the region dry through the last fall and winter, Danny could be just what the meteorologist ordered to provide some relief.

From Puerto Rico to Cuba to the eastern Caribbean island of St Lucia, crops are withering, reservoirs are drying up and cattle are dying while forecasters worry that the situation could only grow worse. In Antigua, reservoirs have completely dried up, forcing the tiny island nation to rely almost completely on desalinated water.

Thanks to El Nino, forecasters expected the hurricane season that began in June to be quieter than normal, with a shorter period of rains. That means less water to help refill Puerto Rico’s thirsty Carraizo and La Plata reservoirs as well as the La Plata river in the central island community of Naranjito. A tropical disturbance that hit the US territory in late June did not fill up those reservoirs as officials had anticipated.

Puerto Rico is among the Caribbean islands worst hit by the water shortage, with more than 1.5 million people affected by the drought so far, the US National Drought Mitigation Centre said. The amount of water flowing into 12 of at least 22 rivers that supply the island’s reservoirs is at an all-time historic low, the Department of Natural Resources said earlier this summer.

Tens of thousands of people receive water only every third day under strict rationing imposed two months ago by the island government. Puerto Rico also activated National Guard troops to help distribute water and approved a resolution to impose fines on people and businesses for improper water use.

“Much of the eastern half of Puerto Rico is 20 plus inches below normal for just 2015, that does not take into account any deficits from 2014,” Brian Fuchs, an expert at the US National Drought Mitigation Centre, said. “Danny may bring a good shot of rain, but we will have to consider the response of reservoirs, rivers, streams (and) groundwater as well.” Even without ultra-strong winds, Danny could remain a threat to the parched islands, particularly in places such as Haiti, where storms have repeatedly unleashed fatal mudslides.

The Caribbean’s last severe drought was in 2010. The current one could grow worse if the hurricane season ending in November produces scant rainfall and the region enters the dry season with parched reservoirs, said Cedric Van Meerbeeck, a climatologist with the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology.

“We might have serious water shortages ... for irrigation of crops, firefighting, domestic consumption or consumption by the hotel sector,” he said.

The Caribbean isn’t the only area in the Western Hemisphere dealing with extreme water shortages. Brazil has been struggling with its own severe drought that has drained reservoirs serving the metropolis of Sao Paulo.

In the Caribbean, the farm sector has lost more than $1 million in crops as well as tens of thousands of dollars in livestock, said Norman Gibson, scientific officer at the Trinidad-based Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute.

On St Lucia, which has been especially hard hit, farmers say crops including coconuts, cashews and oranges are withering. “The outlook is very, very bad,” said Anthony Herman, who oversees a local farm co-operative. “The trees are dying, the plants are dying ... It’s stripping the very life of rivers.”

Officials in Cuba say 75 per cent of the island is enduring a drought that has killed cattle and destroyed thousands of hectares (acres) of crops including plantains, citrus, rice and beans. Heavy rains two months ago in some areas alleviated the problema little, but all 200 government-run reservoirs are far below capacity.

In the Dominican Republic, water shortages have been reported in hundreds of communities, said Martin Melendez, a civil engineer and hydrology expert who has worked as a government consultant. “We were 30 days away from the entire water system collapsing,” he said.

The tourism sector has also been affected. Most large hotels in Puerto Rico have big water tanks and some recycle wastewater to irrigate green areas, but many have curtailed water use, said Frank Comito, CEO of the Florida-based Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association.

Other hotels have cut back on sprinkler time by up to 50 per cent, said Carlos Martinez of Puerto Rico’s Association of Hotels. “Everybody here is worried,” he said. “They are selling water tanks like hot cakes ... and begging God for rain.”

Guests at Puerto Rico’s El Canario by the Lagoon hotel get a note with their room keys asking them to keep their showers short amid the water shortage. “We need your co-operation to avoid waste,” says the message distributed at the front desk of the hotel in the popular Condado district.

At the Casa del Vega guesthouse in St Lucia, tourists sometimes find the water in their rooms turned off for the day, preventing them from taking a shower. “Even though we have a drought guests are not sympathetic to that,” hotel manager Merlyn Compton said.

Danny’s arrival as the first hurricane of the season is just about normal. According to Brian McNoldy, of the Capital Weather Gang, the median date for when the first hurricane forms is August 16. However, the timing of the first storm isn’t indicative of how active a season will be. Last year, Hurricane Arthur formed on July 1 but despite the early start, 2014 ended up being a relatively quiet season with only eight named storms. That’s the fewest since 1997.