Media Release: July 1, 2003

The Caribbean Weather Center relocates to Great Mountain!

David Jones, President of The Caribbean Weather Center Ltd, announced that it's operations have been relocated to Great Mountain, Tortola, some 5 minutes from central Road Town. Because of technological advances more and more of our business is being conducted electronically via the Internet.

The move will not affect our commitments to ZBVI Radio, local businesses, government departments and the BVI Community or the wide range of services we provide to the cruising community, including the daily SSB Weather Net. All of our contact numbers and addresses remain unchanged.

No one can now say, have you looked out of the window to see what is actually happening with the weather!!

THE CARIBBEAN WEATHER CENTER INVITES YOUR COMPANY TO JOIN OUR CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM!

The BVI is unique in the Caribbean in having its own Weather Center. The Weather Center uses the latest technologies to provide customised weather forecasts for a variety of organisations throughout the Caribbean and overseas. Weather Updates and Marine Forecasts can be downloaded daily from our website <www.caribwx.com>.

The Weather Center operates a daily short wave radio weather net for the Cruising Community throughout the Caribbean and the SW N Atlantic, conducts weather briefings to students from the UK Sailing Association, HLSCC and local schools, sponsors marine forecasts for the CORT series, the Caribbean 1500 and other regattas, and provides weather information to BVI residents and visitors. We also handle many hundreds of weather-related Emails each year from prospective visitors and others, including those referred to us by the BVI Tourist Board, the BVICCHA and the ODP. In 2000, The Weather Center received the "Innovation In Commerce" award from the BVICCHA.

Due to the public service nature of our work, The Weather Center relies heavily on sponsorships. Some of our major sponsors include Mount Gay Rum, Road Town Wholesale, Cable & Wireless, ICOM America Inc, CCT-Boatphone, Village Cay Marina & Hotel and Cay Electronics.

We invite your company to join our corporate sponsorship program for only $250 annually! As a corporate sponsor, you receive the following benefits:

· Place your company’s logo on The Weather Center’s Links Page on our website <www.caribwx.com> with a hyperlink to your company’s website. We have one of the most active websites in the BVI with almost one million true page hits in the past 12 months and a daily hit rate close to 10,000 at peak times of the year.

· If planning a private or staff event, you can get a customised weather outlook up to a week ahead.

· Information from our comprehensive weather database such as temperature, humidity, rainfall, sunrise, sunset and tidal information.

· A complimentary copy of The Concise Guide to Caribbean Weather, the recognised reference book on Caribbean weather authored by David Jones, "The Caribbean Weatherman".

To become a corporate sponsor, call or contact The Caribbean Weather Center. We appreciate your support.

The Caribbean Weather Center is sponsoring veteran paddleboarder and endurance athlete Susan Chaplin!

Susan Chaplin, 57, a writer and endurance athlete based on Tortola, B.V.I..., plans to paddle in October the 24 mile St. Lucia channel, between Rodney Bay, St. Lucia and St. Anne, Martinique. Last year, helped by customized weather reports from the Caribbean Weather Center, Chaplin successfully paddled the two open ocean channels between Martinique and Guadeloupe. She spent 8 hours paddling the 26 mile Dominica channel, and nine hours in the Guadeloupe channel. She hopes, again assisted by the Caribbean Weather Center, to paddle a little faster in the St. Lucia channel; she has been training hard, paddling the rough north shore of Tortola in preparation. Chaplin's overall goal for the past several years has been to connect via paddleboard the Windward Caribbean islands, from Grenada to Guadeloupe. Having linked St. Vincent to Grenada in 1999, Chaplin has just the St. Lucia and St. Vincent channels left to accomplish. "I've had good times and terrifying times out there in the open sea," Chaplin admits. "But without reliable weather forecasts the ratio of more good times to scary ones might shift the other way". Susan Chaplin applauds the Caribbean Weather Center for bringing at least some predictability to what many consider a high risk endeavor.

The Latest on Underwater Volcano "Kick 'em Jenny" (Courtesy of the SEISMIC RESEARCH UNIT, THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES)

The picture to the right is a SeaBeam image of Kick 'em Jenny constructed from measurements taken from the NOAA Research Vessel Ronald H. Brown on March 12 2002. The crater of Kick 'em Jenny is clearly visible just to the right of the centre of the image on top of a symmetrical cone. The centre of the crater is at 12.3004 degrees North 61.6378 degrees West. The crater is almost perfectly circular and has a diameter of approximately 333 meters. The highest point on the crater rim is at 61.6398 degrees West 12.3004 degrees North and is 182 meters below sea level. The dome which was first noticed in 1978 and almost completely filled the crater up to at least 1985 has now disappeared almost completely although there appear to be a few remnants of it on the crater floor. The depth from the highest point of the crater rim to the lowest point of the crater floor is about 80 meters. The crater is breached to the northeast. Other features not previously reported are the prominent arcuate escarpment which swings around from east to northwest of the crater, and a series of radial ridges mainly in the sector from north to west.

Mega-Tsunami: Wave of Destruction potentially threatening the Caribbean.

Source: BBC2 9:30pm Thursday 12th October 2000

Scattered across the world’s oceans are a handful of rare geological time-bombs. Once unleashed they create an extraordinary phenomenon, a gigantic tidal wave, far bigger than any normal tsunami, able to cross oceans and ravage countries on the other side of the world. Only recently have scientists realised the next episode is likely to begin at the Canary Islands, off North Africa, where a wall of water will one day be created which will race across the entire Atlantic ocean at the speed of a jet airliner to devastate the east coast of the United States. America will have been struck by a mega-tsunami.

Back in 1953 two geologists travelled to a remote bay in Alaska looking for oil. They gradually realised that in the past the bay had been struck by huge waves, and wondered what could have possibly caused them. Five years later, they got their answer. In 1958 there was a landslide, in which a towering cliff collapsed into the bay, creating a wave half a kilometre high, higher than any skyscraper on Earth. The true destructive potential of landslide-generated tsunami, which scientists named "Mega-tsunami", suddenly began to be appreciated. If a modest-sized landslide in Alaska could create a wave of this size, what havoc could a really huge landslide cause? Scientists now realise that the greatest danger comes from large volcanic islands, which are particularly prone to these massive landslides. Geologists began to look for evidence of past landslides on the sea bed, and what they saw astonished them. The sea floor around Hawaii, for instance, was covered with the remains of millions of years’ worth of ancient landslides, colossal in size. But huge landslides and the mega-tsunami that they cause are extremely rare - the last one happened 4,000 years ago on the island of Réunion.

The growing concern is that the ideal conditions for just such a landslide - and consequent mega-tsunami - now exist on the island of La Palma in the Canaries. In 1949 the southern volcano on the island erupted. During the eruption an enormous crack appeared across one side of the volcano, as the western half slipped a few metres towards the Atlantic before stopping in its tracks. Although the volcano presents no danger while it is quiescent, scientists believe the western flank will give way completely during some future eruption on the summit of the volcano. In other words, any time in the next few thousand years a huge section of southern La Palma, weighing 500 thousand million tonnes, will fall into the Atlantic ocean. What will happen when the volcano on La Palma collapses? Scientists predict that it will generate a wave that will be almost inconceivably destructive, far bigger than anything ever witnessed in modern times. It will surge across the entire Atlantic in a matter of hours, engulfing the whole US east coast, sweeping away everything in its path up to 20km inland. Boston would be hit first, followed by New York, then all the way down the coast to Miami and the Caribbean.

The Caribbean Weather Center Receives the Innovation in Commerce Award from the British Virgin Islands Chamber of Commerce and Hotel Association!

Each year the BVI Chamber of Commerce and Hotel Association makes a number of awards to businesses and individuals in the BVI in recognition of special achievements in Commerce and Hospitality. This year, The Caribbean Weather Center received the Innovation in Commerce Award. In making the award, the Chamber of Commerce cited the unique position that the Weather Center occupies in the Caribbean because it is the only weather centre in the region and is recognised as an authoritative source of early warnings for potentially severe weather.