Dear Editor,

Perhaps it was the several inches of rain which was dumped over Guyana last Saturday but of course we did not receive such a prediction or report from the Ministry of Agriculture’s weather reporting division. Why am I not surprised?

Inaccurate weather reporting is still the order of the day even though the multi-million dollar Doppler Radar has been mounted at Hyde Park in Timehri.

The El Nino phenomenon seems to have given way to the much anticipated Christmas rains, which are on time just one day short of the unofficial start of the Christmas season (November 1).

Can we ever get it right with the weather in Guyana? It being the start of the final rainy season for this year, Guyanese would be very interested to know what will be the daily occurrences especially now that there will be extreme weather on many days for the rest of the year.

Is the Doppler radar in operation? Is it being used to disseminate the current spate of inaccurate weather reporting? Are there trained personnel to interpret and report data from this radar? When and will Guyanese be able to view and interpret live data from the Doppler Radar for themselves as is currently the case with the Met Office’s website(http:// www.hydromet.gov.gy/weather.html)?

When will TV and radio newscasts stop reporting erroneous weather forecasts? Does Guyana even have a trained Meteorologist from the American Meteorological Society (AMS)?

If we cannot get accurate weather reporting right here at home, then who or where else in the world do we expect to be accurate?

Yours faithfully,
Leon Jameson Suseran