First trip to St Lucia question on weather/hurricanes
 

Having travelled in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America we're finally making our first visit to the Carribean and I'm very excited.

We've decided on Ladera, in St Lucia, for a one week stay...really just R&R but I'm a little confused by some of the contradictory weather information. We need to decide whether to go in Nov or Dec.

Some of the guide books say the weather is good from November to March/April...other discount November as hurricane season. We're thinking of visting either at the beginning of November (more convenient) or if the weather would be better at the beginning of December.

Does anyone have any experience of either time of year...we don't mind tropical rain but would prefer to avoid the major hurricane season.

Thanks very much.

Officially, St. Lucia's hurricane season runs from 06/01 through 11/30.

As sceneisle posted, that is the official hurricane season. (Love that moniker!) We traveled there for a week the weekend after Thanksgiving in '03 and '04. The weather was great especially in '03. Last year was a very active hurricane season as we all know. For a couple of weeks before we went last year, there was a storm front that pretty much stalled itself over the Caribbean, and I don't mean the occasional shower with this one. We got lucky that it moved on before we went.There is no way to know what the weather will be, but you are likely out of the serious threat of a hurricane in November. That said, I just heard this evening on Fox News Channel that they are predicting nine hurricanes this season.

Thanks so much for the replies...it seems from this post and another one that the chances decrease considerably by the end of November but that there are no guarentees!

If we add the Grenadines onto our 7 nights at Ladera I think we'll go around Thanksgiving Nov 20-Dec 3 or if we just go for a week we'll go in early Dec.

Thanks again!

While you can never be certain with hurricanes, I think you're pretty safe, statistically speaking, in going around Thanksgiving. What I'd suggest you do is to buy trip cancellation insurance just in case since Ladera is very expensive. For what it's worth, it's very rare for hurricanes to hit the Grenadines, though one did nick them last year.

Im sure you will be fine... St.Lucia is pretty far south of the hurricane line. It is one of our favorite islands in the carribbean.

Thanks so much for your help!

We've been to St Lucia twice (the last week in Nov 1998 & the 3rd week of Jan 2003). Both times were up near Castries in the north.

For our Nov trip, we had quite a bit of cloud-cover & several showers during the daytime. One day it rained the whole day. For our Jan trip, the weather was pretty much the same as our Nov trip !! There was a little less rain, though.

Jackie