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Dry Weather to Continue

Don’t look for any change during the next two weeks in the dry spell that began last summer, meteorologist Luis Rosa at the National Weather Service in San Juan said Thursday.

“For the next two weeks, I don’t see much chance of significant rain,” he said, adding that the wind will also continue.

According to Rosa, the first half of 2012 was wet, but the second half dry.

Weather Service data shows that in 2012, a total of 35.87 inches of rain fell on St. Thomas and 29.46 inches on St. Croix. However, at Weather Station Zephyr at Ajax Peak, St. John, only a total of 22.87 inches fell.

From Jan. 1 through Thursday, St. Thomas had only 2.53 inches of rain compared with 8.22 inches for the same time period last year. For the same time period on St. Croix, 4.70 inches of rain fell compared with 8.47 inches in 2012. On St. John, 4.12 inches fell this year between Jan. 1 and Thursday. While Zephyr can’t generate the figures for the rainfall from Jan. 1 through April 11, 2012, 5.19 inches fell through the end of April.

“This year is 1 to 3 inches below normal,” Rosa said.

Until substantial rain starts to fall, the Fire Service has no plans to lift the ban on open burning that began in February, Fire Service spokesman Darryl George said.

George said the ban would “most likely” be lifted in late April or May. “We usually start getting rain right after Carnival,” he said.

While there has been some rain, it will take more than the rain that fell at the beginning of the long Easter weekend. George said that there are still dry patches on all three islands that are a fire hazard. On St. Croix, they’re on the south shore and the central part of the island. St. Thomas has dry spots on the east and west ends of the island as well as mid-island. On St. John, areas of Coral Bay and Cruz Bay are dry.

St. Croix in particular has already had a rash of fires, George said.

Farmers are hurting, Agriculture Commissioner Louis Petersen said, acknowledging the department knows rainfall is cyclical and tries to plan accordingly.

Dry conditions mean livestock has less foragebecause it doesn’t grow as well, and Petersen said farmers who grow agriculture products cut back on their acreage until the rains come again.

While the department no longer has the money to provide livestock food for farmers like it had done in the past, it does have a system in place to sell them water at a bargain rate. Petersen said that since the V.I. Housing Authority finds it cheaper to buy potable water for its tenants than pay the expense of bringing cistern water up to drinkable quality, the Agriculture Department has tapped into housing communities’ cisterns. He said the department charges only for the cost of diesel for its water delivery truck.

According to Peterson, the construction of a large pond on St. Croix to retain water has paid off in two ways.

“It stores water and alleviates flooding,” he said.

Petersen has also pushed for drip irrigation, which he said was a more efficient way to get water to plants than conventional watering.

While it’s been dry in the territory, that’s also the case on the mainland. This has raised the cost of feed bought by farmers to feed their livestock, Petersen said.

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