Against a backdrop of escalating climate-driven extreme weather across the Caribbean, Antigua and Barbuda is taking a major step forward in strengthening its national disaster preparedness and climate resilience. The Antigua and Barbuda Meteorological Service (ABMS), in partnership with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), has announced it will host a two-day national institutional workshop focused on developing comprehensive Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for flood forecasting and early warning, scheduled to run June 25–26, 2026 at the National Office of Disaster Services (NODS) facility in Saint John’s, American Road.
This workshop is not an isolated effort; it forms a core component of the broader Early Warning Systems for Floods (EWS-F) Project, funded by the United States Department of State. It marks a defining milestone in Antigua and Barbuda’s long-term strategy to boost climate resilience, cut disaster risk, and build robust multi-hazard early warning infrastructure. The initiative is coordinated by ABMS as part of the agency’s ongoing institutional transformation under its Meteorological Renaissance 2030 agenda, aligned with the United Nations-led global Early Warnings for All (EW4ALL) initiative that aims to deliver early warning protection to every person on Earth by 2027.
To reflect the cross-cutting nature of effective flood risk management, the workshop will bring together a diverse group of national stakeholders from across public, private, and academic sectors. Participating institutions include the Antigua Public Utilities Authority Water Business Unit, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Works, the Survey Department, the Department of Environment, the Development Control Authority, the St. John’s Development Corporation, the National Office of Disaster Services, Antigua and Barbuda Search and Rescue (ABSAR), private sector insurance representatives, The University of the West Indies, and ABMS itself. This broad participation underscores a growing global consensus that functional flood early warning systems depend on a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach: only when forecasters, infrastructure planners, land use managers, water resource regulators, emergency responders, academics, and private industry align their efforts can communities effectively protect lives, livelihoods, and hard-won development gains.
Over the course of the two-day event, collaborating stakeholders will tackle a series of key objectives designed to build a durable, integrated flood warning framework. Participants will conduct a full review of end-to-end flood forecasting and warning workflows, clarify institutional roles, responsibilities, and cross-agency decision-making protocols, strengthen interagency coordination and communication channels, refine protocols for warning dissemination and turning warnings into concrete protective action, draft the first national Standard Operating Procedures for flood forecasting and warning, and lay the groundwork for a fully integrated, sustainable national flood early warning system.
A central priority of the workshop is preparing national institutions for the rollout of the Urban and Flash Flood Information System (UFFIS), a cutting-edge flood forecasting and decision-support platform being rolled out as part of the EWS-F Project. When fully operational, UFFIS will deliver best-in-class capabilities for monitoring, forecasting, and issuing warnings for both urban and flash flood events. This technology will allow national authorities to accurately anticipate flood impacts, boost community preparedness, and make more informed, science-backed decisions at every stage of a flood emergency – before, during, and after the event.
Notably, Antigua and Barbuda is set to become one of a small number of Caribbean nations, and potentially among the first three countries in the region, to access and benefit from this advanced technology. This positions the island nation at the leading edge of regional efforts to modernize flood forecasting and reinforce climate resilience through data-driven decision support systems.
ABMS Director Dale Destin emphasized the transformative potential of the initiative in his remarks, noting that effective flood communications must extend beyond raw forecasts to deliver clear, actionable guidance that drives timely protective action. “This workshop represents a critical step toward building a truly integrated, impact-based flood early warning system for Antigua and Barbuda,” Destin said. “By bringing together all relevant stakeholders, we are strengthening the institutional partnerships and operational procedures necessary to ensure that warnings reach the right people at the right time and lead to meaningful action.”
Destin added that the initiative is a key pillar of ABMS’s Meteorological Renaissance 2030 agenda and Antigua and Barbuda’s commitment to the global Early Warnings for All framework. It demonstrates that strategic investment in national meteorological and hydrological services delivers benefits that go far beyond basic weather forecasting, he explained: “Every dollar invested in the Meteorological Service strengthens public safety, protects critical infrastructure, supports economic development, enhances climate resilience, and reduces disaster losses. Strong meteorological services are not a cost; they are a national investment in resilience, sustainability, and prosperity.”
Organizers expect the workshop to lay the critical institutional groundwork needed to successfully implement and sustain long-term flood early warning services across Antigua and Barbuda, directly advancing the country’s national climate adaptation goals and core disaster risk reduction priorities. ABMS has publicly thanked the National Office of Disaster Services for providing the event venue and supporting the landmark national initiative.
Outcomes from the workshop will directly shape the final development of operational flood forecasting and warning SOPs, with the ultimate goal of ensuring all future flood warnings are timely, cross-agency coordinated, impact-focused, and actionable. In turn, this will strengthen the safety and climate resilience of communities across both islands of Antigua and Barbuda.
As a cornerstone of national safety and sustainable development, ABMS is the national authority entrusted with delivering weather, climate, marine, and tsunami early warning services for the country. The agency’s work delivers measurable economic value, with estimates showing investments in ABMS generate annual avoided disaster losses and efficiency gains equivalent to as much as 6% of the country’s gross domestic product – equal to roughly 200 to 400 million Eastern Caribbean dollars (74 to 150 million USD) per year. ABMS’s forecasts, warnings, climate services, and hazard monitoring programs play an irreplaceable role in protecting lives, livelihoods, property, and critical infrastructure, while supporting national disaster risk reduction and climate resilience goals. Its services underpin key economic sectors from aviation and maritime transport to the blue economy, tourism, agriculture, water resource management, health, energy, and emergency management, making a substantial contribution to national safety, economic stability, and long-term sustainable development.