No immediate drought threat for T&T, but drier months ahead

Seigo­nie Mo­hammed

Trinidad and To­ba­go is not fac­ing an im­me­di­ate drought, but dri­er con­di­tions could de­vel­op lat­er this year, ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS).

In its lat­est out­look, is­sued April 10, the TTMS said typ­i­cal dry sea­son con­di­tions are ex­pect­ed through June 2026, with “lit­tle to no con­cern for agri­cul­tur­al drought” in the short term.

Da­ta from Jan­u­ary to March show most­ly nor­mal dry­ness lev­els across both is­lands, al­though bor­der­line dry con­di­tions were ob­served in parts of cen­tral Trinidad, par­tic­u­lar­ly around Pi­ar­co. To­ba­go, by con­trast, has ex­pe­ri­enced no sig­nif­i­cant dry­ness con­cerns, sup­port­ed by near-nor­mal rain­fall pat­terns.

Mid-Year Shift Ex­pect­ed

While the short-term out­look re­mains sta­ble, the TTMS warns that con­di­tions could be­gin to shift from Ju­ly on­ward, es­pe­cial­ly in cen­tral Trinidad and parts of To­ba­go.

The re­port cau­tions that re­duced rain­fall dur­ing this pe­ri­od could lead to low­er soil mois­ture and re­duced wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty par­tic­u­lar­ly ear­ly in the dry spell.

Al­though wild­fire po­ten­tial is ex­pect­ed to ease slight­ly to­ward June, the ear­ly part of the pe­ri­od may still present el­e­vat­ed risks.

Agri­cul­tur­al stake­hold­ers are al­so be­ing en­cour­aged to take proac­tive steps to man­age the evolv­ing con­di­tions. The ser­vice says this can be achieved by mon­i­tor­ing ir­ri­ga­tion, con­serv­ing wa­ter, and avoid­ing burn­ing ac­tiv­i­ties as a pre­cau­tion.

Cli­mate Fac­tors at Play

The out­look al­so points to broad­er cli­mate in­flu­ences. With La Niña con­di­tions end­ing and a pos­si­ble tran­si­tion to­ward El Niño lat­er in 2026, warmer tem­per­a­tures and in­creased evap­o­ra­tion could fur­ther con­tribute to dry­ing trends.

Mea­sured Out­look, Not Alarm

De­spite the pro­jec­tions, the TTMS em­pha­sizes that the sit­u­a­tion does not cur­rent­ly con­sti­tute a drought emer­gency.

In­stead, the fore­cast sig­nals a grad­ual tran­si­tion to­ward dri­er con­di­tions, un­der­scor­ing the need for mon­i­tor­ing and pre­pared­ness rather than alarm.

As the coun­try moves deep­er in­to the up­com­ing wet sea­son, up­dat­ed fore­casts will be crit­i­cal in de­ter­min­ing whether these ear­ly warn­ing signs de­vel­op in­to more sig­nif­i­cant dry­ness lat­er in the year.