TTMS forecasts quiet hurricane season

Seigo­nie Mo­hammed

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice says there is a 49% chance of be­low nor­mal hur­ri­cane ac­tiv­i­ty and a 37% chance of be­low nor­mal trop­i­cal storm ac­tiv­i­ty for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s area of in­ter­est dur­ing the 2026 At­lantic Hur­ri­cane Sea­son.

The fore­cast was pre­sent­ed dur­ing the 20th Na­tion­al Cli­mate Out­look Fo­rum (NCOF), ahead of the of­fi­cial start of the North At­lantic Hur­ri­cane Sea­son on June 1. The sea­son runs through No­vem­ber 30.

Ac­cord­ing to TTMS Act­ing Cli­ma­tol­o­gist Kaidar Kissoon, “the most like­ly num­ber of named trop­i­cal storms ex­pect­ed with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s area of in­ter­est be­tween June and No­vem­ber is three.” The ser­vice al­so pre­dicts one hur­ri­cane could form with­in the area dur­ing the same pe­ri­od.

The TTMS de­fines Trinidad and To­ba­go’s area of in­ter­est as the re­gion south of 15°N lat­i­tude, stretch­ing be­tween the east­ern Caribbean and the west coast of Africa with­in the North At­lantic Ocean. Kissoon said on­ly trop­i­cal cy­clones form­ing with­in this zone have his­tor­i­cal­ly posed a di­rect threat to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Based on the 1991-2020 cli­ma­to­log­i­cal av­er­age, four named storms typ­i­cal­ly form with­in the area, with one be­com­ing a hur­ri­cane.

The TTMS said its sea­son­al fore­cast is based on three pri­ma­ry cli­mate dri­vers linked to sea sur­face tem­per­a­ture (SST) pat­terns across the At­lantic and Pa­cif­ic oceans.

These in­clude the El Niño-South­ern Os­cil­la­tion (EN­SO), SSTs sur­round­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the At­lantic Merid­ion­al Mode (AMM), which mea­sures north-south SST gra­di­ents near the In­ter-Trop­i­cal Con­ver­gence Zone (ITCZ).

The TTMS said a strong El Niño is ex­pect­ed to de­vel­op in the east­ern-cen­tral Pa­cif­ic Ocean lat­er this year. Fore­cast­ers said El Niño con­di­tions gen­er­al­ly sup­press rain­fall and cloud de­vel­op­ment over Trinidad and To­ba­go and can in­flu­ence trop­i­cal cy­clone ac­tiv­i­ty across the At­lantic basin.

The ser­vice added that the AMM is cur­rent­ly in a neg­a­tive phase but is ex­pect­ed to shift to a neu­tral phase dur­ing the Au­gust to Oc­to­ber pe­ri­od. Pos­i­tive AMM con­di­tions are as­so­ci­at­ed with en­hanced ITCZ ac­tiv­i­ty shift­ing fur­ther north and re­duced up­per-lev­el west­er­ly winds across the At­lantic Main De­vel­op­ment Re­gion.

De­spite the fore­cast, the TTMS warned that Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains vul­ner­a­ble to flood­ing from trop­i­cal waves, troughs and ITCZ ac­tiv­i­ty, even with­out di­rect trop­i­cal storm or hur­ri­cane im­pacts.