Sept 2nd Guest Speaker: Wayne Neely-About the Author

Wayne Neely is an international speaker, best-selling author, lecturer on hurricanes, and a meteorologist. Traveling extensively, Wayne addresses critical issues affecting all aspects of hurricanes, especially Bahamian and Caribbean hurricanes which are two of his central areas of expertise. He travels often to speak to colleges and universities on the impact of hurricanes on the region and worldwide, global warming and climate change. Locally he speaks quite regularly to schools on hurricanes. He has written or contributed every year to both the Nassau Guardian and The Tribune’s Annual Hurricane Supplement. He has held two major hurricane exhibitions on Bahamian hurricanes in the past. Wayne Neely is a certified Bahamian Meteorologist working at the Department of Meteorology in Nassau, Bahamas for the last 25 years. He studied at the College of the Bahamas and majored in Geography and History. He then attended the Caribbean Meteorological Institute in Barbados and earned his Forecaster’s Degree. He has written and published ten books on hurricanes. 

The students who used his book as a resource were some of the first people to read Neely’s latest book. He said the students also made use of his previous books for the project, which entailed them selecting one hurricane to write on.

“Whenever I publish a book, the first thing I do is to ensure the books are placed in the schools so that Bahamian students can learn about hurricanes – and not only the impact of hurricanes, but also the impact those hurricanes had on the people, the country and society at the time. And that’s a lesson in history, because you have to know your past. For example, most people didn’t know what to do during Dorian, and you saw the death toll rose significantly with Dorian, because most people never experienced a major hurricane, so writing these books, I am able to provide a template storm to let people know what these storms are capable of inflicting on the country.”