(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana)Dr David Farrell has been appointed Principal of the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH), located in Barbados. He replaces Dr Colin Depradine, who served since October 1983.

The CIMH, formerly the Caribbean Meteorological Institute, is an organ of the Caribbean Meteorological Organisation (CMO) which has its Headquarters in Trinidad and Tobago. The CMO, a specialised agency of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), coordinates the joint scientific and technical activities of the meteorological and hydrometeorological services of 16 English-speaking Caribbean countries. The CIMH is its training department.

Dr Farrell, a native of Barbados, earned a B.Sc. (Hons) in Geophysics from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, as well as an M.Sc. and PhD. in Geological Sciences (Hydrogeology) from the University of Manitoba, Canada. Until his assumption of duties on May 1 2006, Dr Farrell was a Senior Research Scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, USA.

According to Mr Tyrone Sutherland, Coordinating Director of the CMO, one of Dr Farrell's early tasks will be to participate in an extensive review of the Institute’s training and research programmes, to keep it in line with similar institutions around the world. This review will be undertaken under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

The Institute, established in 1967, trains the Region’s weather observers, technicians, weather forecasters, specialists in hydrology, agrometeorology and other related disciplines. The Institute also assists in the Bachelor of Science degree programme at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus with respect to those students majoring in Meteorology. The CIMH also serves as the CMO’s research and climate centre, as well as the regional instrument calibration and maintenance centre, and is associated with the training programmes of the WMO.