Adverse weather alert for western half of Trinidad

Seigo­nie Mo­hammed

Trinidad and To­ba­go may be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a hot spell, but that will not stop parts of the coun­try from fac­ing a risk of heavy rain­fall and flood­ing this af­ter­noon.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) has placed the west­ern half of Trinidad un­der a Yel­low-Lev­el Ad­verse Weath­er Alert from 1 pm to 5 pm to­day, Oc­to­ber 5, not­ing that heavy show­ers and thun­der­storms could pro­duce street or flash flood­ing, land­slips and gusty winds.

The alert comes while the is­lands re­main un­der a Hot Spell Alert, cre­at­ing what may ap­pear to be con­trast­ing weath­er con­di­tions; un­usu­al­ly hot con­di­tions along­side the pos­si­bil­i­ty of in­tense af­ter­noon rain­fall.

But the two can oc­cur at the same time.

Ac­cord­ing to the Met Ser­vice's Ad­verse Weath­er bul­letin, a com­bi­na­tion of lo­cal dy­nam­ics and a trop­i­cal wave is ex­pect­ed to cre­ate the po­ten­tial for im­pact­ful weath­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly across west­ern parts of Trinidad this af­ter­noon.

The TTMS said show­ers and iso­lat­ed thun­der­storms are al­so pos­si­ble across oth­er parts of Trinidad and To­ba­go, al­though the west­ern half of Trinidad is where the risk of sig­nif­i­cant im­pacts has prompt­ed the Yel­low-Lev­el alert.

Heavy rain does not mean the heat is over.

The prospect of rain­fall should al­so not be in­ter­pret­ed as an end to the cur­rent hot spell.

Hot spell con­di­tions are de­ter­mined by tem­per­a­tures over a pe­ri­od of time, while show­ers and thun­der­storms can de­vel­op over much short­er pe­ri­ods when at­mos­pher­ic con­di­tions be­come favourable.

That means a lo­ca­tion can ex­pe­ri­ence sig­nif­i­cant heat and still see in­tense rain­fall or thun­der­storms lat­er in the day.

For west­ern ar­eas, the im­me­di­ate con­cern be­tween 1 pm and 5 pm will be the po­ten­tial im­pacts of that rain­fall.

The Met Ser­vice warned that heavy down­pours could re­sult in street or flash flood­ing, while land­slips are pos­si­ble in sus­cep­ti­ble ar­eas. Gusty winds could al­so oc­cur in and around heav­ier show­ers and thun­der­storms.

The TTMS has clas­si­fied the ad­verse weath­er alert at Yel­low Lev­el, mean­ing im­pact­ful con­di­tions are con­sid­ered like­ly and the pub­lic should mon­i­tor weath­er con­di­tions.

Res­i­dents, par­tic­u­lar­ly those in flood- and land­slide-prone com­mu­ni­ties, are be­ing ad­vised to re­main vig­i­lant, while mo­torists should ex­er­cise cau­tion dur­ing pe­ri­ods of heavy rain­fall.

The chang­ing con­di­tions al­so un­der­score an im­por­tant point dur­ing the wet sea­son: a spell of un­usu­al­ly hot weath­er does not elim­i­nate the pos­si­bil­i­ty of heavy rain­fall, thun­der­storms or flood­ing.