Tropical wave weakens, but Caribbean impacts still possible

Seigo­nie Mo­hammed

The chances of a trop­i­cal sys­tem de­vel­op­ing east of the Caribbean have de­creased, but fore­cast­ers say heavy rain­fall, gusty winds and chop­py seas could still af­fect parts of the Less­er An­tilles this week­end.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) says the ac­tive trop­i­cal wave is now about 1,400 km east of the Less­er An­tilles, mov­ing clos­er to the re­gion.

As of 2 pm Thurs­day, its show­ers and thun­der­storms had be­come less or­gan­ised and the sys­tem no longer had a closed cir­cu­la­tion.

The wave is al­so ex­pect­ed to en­counter in­creas­ing­ly un­favourable con­di­tions for strength­en­ing as it con­tin­ues west­ward, main­ly due to sig­nif­i­cant Sa­ha­ran Dust con­cen­tra­tions present in the at­mos­phere.

But here’s the im­por­tant part: de­vel­op­ment or not, the weath­er is still com­ing.

The TTMS ex­pects the wave to be­gin af­fect­ing the Less­er An­tilles from late Fri­day night in­to Sat­ur­day, with heavy rain­fall and gusty winds pos­si­ble, par­tic­u­lar­ly across the north­ern Wind­ward Is­lands.

As for Trinidad and To­ba­go, there are cur­rent­ly no watch­es or warn­ings in ef­fect for the is­lands.

Far­ther north in the At­lantic, Cristo­bal has weak­ened from a trop­i­cal storm to a post-trop­i­cal cy­clone. It re­mains over the open At­lantic and pos­es no di­rect threat to the Caribbean.

And there’s an­oth­er sys­tem on the trop­i­cal con­vey­or belt.

A trop­i­cal wave that re­cent­ly emerged from Africa is al­so be­ing mon­i­tored as it trav­els west­ward across the At­lantic.