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The Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean Cli­mate Out­look Fo­rum (Cari­COF) said Fri­day that the El Niño-South­ern Os­cil­la­tion (EN­SO) neu­tral con­di­tions in the Pa­cif­ic, com­bined with un­usu­al­ly warm wa­ters around the Caribbean, could cre­ate a re­gion­al heat sea­son with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of heat­waves, grad­u­al­ly ramp­ing up, but un­like­ly to match 2023 and 2024.

EN­SO is a re­cur­ring cli­mate pat­tern in­volv­ing changes in the tem­per­a­ture of wa­ters in the cen­tral and east­ern trop­i­cal Pa­cif­ic Ocean.

In its lat­est Caribbean Cli­mate Out­looks, Cari­COF said in May, the oc­cur­rence of high evap­o­ra­tion rates, short dry spells and the pos­si­ble buildup of any on­go­ing drought in­creas­es heat and wild­fire po­ten­tial and that rain­fall in­ten­si­ty and show­er fre­quen­cy should rise in May in the Ba­hamas, Guianas and Greater An­tilles or June in Be­lize and the Less­er An­tilles.