The CARICOM Secretariat today announced the retirement at the end of 1999 of Mr Cyril Egbert Berridge, long-serving Coordinating Director of the Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO).

The Caribbean Meteorological Organization, with headquarters in Trinidad, is one of the oldest Caribbean institutions. It originated out of the old British Caribbean Meteorological Service, which was established in 1951. After the break-up of the Federation and the independence of most islands, the Caribbean Meteorological Service was transformed into the CMO in 1972.

A functionally autonomous member of the CARICOM family, the CMO coordinates the joint activities of the meteorological and hydrometeorological services of 16 English-speaking countries in the Region. The CMO's training arm and its equipment maintenance and climate centre is the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology, located in Barbados.

Mr Berridge, of Trinidad and Tobago, held the post of Coordinating Director of the CMO since 1972. Prior to that, he was the Director of the Trinidad and Tobago Meteorological Service. During his tenure, the CMO assisted the national meteorological services in the Caribbean in developing a weather forecasting and warning system which provides a continuous watch over the Caribbean through its network of weather observing stations, weather satellites, computerized atmospheric models and weather radars. With this system, it is now almost impossible for tropical storms and hurricanes to reach the Caribbean undetected.

Through Mr Berridge, the CMO has acquired significant international recognition, and his contribution to the science of meteorology in the Caribbean has been long recognized by regional governments and institutions. He used his links with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva to secure considerable external assistance for the Caribbean, such as in high-level training for staff and the installation of a modern satellite-based telecommunication system for the regional meteorological services. Mr Berridge was a member of the WMO Executive Council since 1983 and its First Vice-President from 1995 to this year.

Mr. Tyrone Sutherland was unanimously selected at the 38th annual meeting of the Caribbean Meteorological Council, which met in St. Lucia in November 1998, as the successor to Mr. Berridge as Coordinating Director, CMO. The Council, comprising Caribbean government ministers and senior officials responsible for meteorological services, is the governing body of the CMO.

Mr. Sutherland was head of the St. Lucia Meteorological Service until early 1982, then spent the next 10 years as a Meteorologist and Severe Storms Specialist with the Atmospheric Environmental Service of Canada. In 1992, he joined WMO, the specialized United Nations agency located in Geneva, Switzerland, which coordinates global activities in meteorology, hydrology and related geophysical sciences. He was first the Scientific Officer in its Tropical Cyclone Programme then became Executive Assistant to the Secretary-General of that Organization. After resigning from WMO to take up this Caribbean post, he was elected by the world body as a member of its Executive Council.

Both Mr Berridge and Mr Sutherland agree that the Caribbean Meteorological Organization has provided unity of purpose for its Member countries in meteorology and related sciences. The Region has made tremendous strides through the introduction of appropriate technology. But the pace of technological change is increasing constantly, and keeping up and adapting to this will be one of the major challenges facing the national meteorological services into the early years of the 21st century.

One of Mr Sutherland's first tasks will be the implementation of a project, initiated by Mr Berridge and supported by the European Union, to replace the current, ageing CMO weather radars with new Doppler weather radars. These radars will ensure that the effectiveness of the severe weather warning systems in the Caribbean are maintained and improved.