Tobago faces drought as heat and unreliable rainfall squeeze T&T

Seigo­nie Mo­hammed

Trinidad and To­ba­go could reach the end of the 2026 wet sea­son with less wa­ter in the ground than usu­al, as fore­cast­ers warn of in­creas­ing­ly un­re­li­able rain­fall, de­vel­op­ing drought con­di­tions and per­sis­tent heat that could put ad­di­tion­al pres­sure on farms and wa­ter sup­plies.

Cli­mate out­looks from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) and the Caribbean Cli­mate Out­look Fo­rum (Cari­COF) point in the same gen­er­al di­rec­tion: few­er rainy days and wet spells as the wet sea­son winds down, wors­en­ing dry­ness in To­ba­go and parts of Trinidad, and above-av­er­age tem­per­a­tures that can ac­cel­er­ate the loss of mois­ture from soil and wa­ter sources.

To­ba­go is emerg­ing as the main area of con­cern.

A dry spell had al­ready de­vel­oped around Hills­bor­ough and Mount St George in cen­tral To­ba­go by the end of Au­gust. Be­tween June and Au­gust, the dry­ness in­dex at Hills­bor­ough reached -1.18, while Crown Point record­ed -0.63.

The sit­u­a­tion is ex­pect­ed to de­te­ri­o­rate.

By the end of Oc­to­ber, TTMS an­tic­i­pates a se­vere drought warn­ing around Hills­bor­ough, Mount St George and cen­tral To­ba­go, and a drought warn­ing for Crown Point and south­west To­ba­go.

Parts of Trinidad are al­so ex­pect­ed to be­come sig­nif­i­cant­ly dri­er. A drought watch is fore­cast from Va­len­cia in the north­east, across the Ca­roni Riv­er basin, through Pi­ar­co and west­wards.

By the end of No­vem­ber, TTMS says drought is ex­pect­ed across To­ba­go and north­east Trinidad. Long-term drought is al­so pos­si­ble across To­ba­go through De­cem­ber.

Rain may fall, but not of­ten enough

The emerg­ing prob­lem is not sim­ply whether it rains. It is al­so how fre­quent­ly it hap­pens and whether there are enough sus­tained pe­ri­ods of rain to re­plen­ish the wa­ter be­ing lost be­tween show­ers.

TTMS gives a 66 per cent prob­a­bil­i­ty of be­low-nor­mal rain­fall across T&T from Oc­to­ber to De­cem­ber. There is al­so a 68 per cent chance of a be­low-nor­mal num­ber of wet days dur­ing the three-month pe­ri­od.

The re­gion­al pic­ture is sim­i­lar.

Cari­COF fore­casts few­er wet days than usu­al across the An­tilles, with medi­um-to-high con­fi­dence. It al­so ex­pects few­er wet spells and very wet spells than usu­al across Caribbean is­lands.

That mat­ters be­cause sev­er­al con­sec­u­tive rainy days can help re­store soil mois­ture and re­plen­ish wa­ter sources more ef­fec­tive­ly than iso­lat­ed show­ers.

Cari­COF warns that few­er wet spells dur­ing the late wet sea­son could mean slow­er-than-usu­al re­plen­ish­ment of large wa­ter reser­voirs and soil mois­ture across most Caribbean is­lands.

The warn­ing comes af­ter rain­fall was al­ready be­low nor­mal at Pi­ar­co in Au­gust. Pi­ar­co record­ed 167.9 mil­lime­tres of rain that month, 73 per cent of its av­er­age. Cen­tral To­ba­go al­so re­ceived be­low-nor­mal rain­fall.

Heat adds an­oth­er prob­lem

Less re­li­able rain­fall is on­ly one part of the pic­ture.

Both day­time and night­time tem­per­a­tures are ex­pect­ed to re­main above av­er­age across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The coun­try's heat sea­son nor­mal­ly ends at the end of Oc­to­ber, al­though TTMS says warm tem­per­a­tures can per­sist in­to the first week of No­vem­ber.

The out­look car­ries a 75 per cent prob­a­bil­i­ty of ten three-day hot spells and two five-day hot spells dur­ing Oc­to­ber.

Per­sis­tent heat mat­ters dur­ing a dry­ing pe­ri­od be­cause high­er tem­per­a­tures in­crease evap­o­ra­tion and mois­ture loss.

TTMS says the com­bi­na­tion of ir­reg­u­lar rain­fall, more hot-spell days and de­creas­ing soil mois­ture cre­ates an el­e­vat­ed risk for crops and live­stock.

Farm­ers could there­fore find them­selves need­ing more ir­ri­ga­tion even while nat­ur­al wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty be­comes less de­pend­able.

TTMS is ad­vis­ing the agri­cul­ture sec­tor to mon­i­tor wa­ter use, main­tain ad­e­quate ir­ri­ga­tion and field wa­ter stor­age, weed reg­u­lar­ly to re­duce com­pe­ti­tion for wa­ter, and watch for pests that favour less-wet con­di­tions.

Pres­sure on wa­ter sup­plies

The im­pli­ca­tions ex­tend be­yond agri­cul­ture.

Rain­fall dur­ing the wet sea­son helps re­plen­ish dams, rivers, ground­wa­ter and oth­er sources that have to car­ry the coun­try through the fol­low­ing dry sea­son.

The Ser­vice warns that the ex­pect­ed con­di­tions could re­duce recharge of dams and un­der­ground wa­ter re­serves and low­er stream flows, po­ten­tial­ly re­duc­ing sur­face wa­ter avail­able for dis­tri­b­u­tion.

Its ad­vice to the wa­ter sec­tor is sig­nif­i­cant: con­tin­ue wa­ter-con­ser­va­tion mea­sures be­cause dri­er-than-usu­al con­di­tions could ex­tend in­to the 2027 dry sea­son.

The rain­fall out­look for the be­gin­ning of 2027 of­fers lit­tle re­as­sur­ance. It gives a 64 per cent prob­a­bil­i­ty of be­low-nor­mal rain­fall across Trinidad and To­ba­go from Jan­u­ary to March.

That rais­es an im­por­tant ques­tion head­ing in­to the fi­nal months of 2026: Will enough wa­ter be re­plen­ished be­fore the dry sea­son be­gins?

Drought does not mean floods dis­ap­pear

Res­i­dents should not in­ter­pret a drought out­look as mean­ing heavy rain and flood­ing are no longer pos­si­ble.

TTMS as­sess­es the Oc­to­ber-to-De­cem­ber flood po­ten­tial as low to mod­er­ate in Trinidad and low in To­ba­go.

Cari­COF al­so warns that ex­treme wet spells can still oc­cur across Caribbean is­lands and pro­duce flash floods and re­lat­ed haz­ards, even dur­ing a sea­son with few­er wet days over­all.

In oth­er words, Trinidad and To­ba­go can ex­pe­ri­ence too lit­tle rain over sev­er­al months while still re­ceiv­ing dan­ger­ous amounts of rain over a few hours or days.

That dis­tinc­tion will be­come in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant as the coun­try moves to­wards the end of the wet sea­son.

The out­looks do not pre­dict that every com­mu­ni­ty will be­come dry, nor do they tell res­i­dents whether it will rain on a par­tic­u­lar day. They are sea­son­al fore­casts ex­pressed as prob­a­bil­i­ties, not guar­an­tees.

TTMS it­self cau­tions that its sea­son­al out­look should not be used on its own. Dai­ly weath­er fore­casts, short­er-range fore­casts and of­fi­cial warn­ings re­main im­por­tant for de­ter­min­ing im­me­di­ate con­di­tions.

What the out­looks pro­vide is an ear­ly warn­ing of the broad­er di­rec­tion.

For Trinidad and To­ba­go, that di­rec­tion is to­wards a po­ten­tial­ly dif­fi­cult tran­si­tion from wet sea­son to dry: less de­pend­able rain­fall, de­vel­op­ing drought, con­tin­ued heat and grow­ing pres­sure on the wa­ter stored in the coun­try's soil, rivers, reser­voirs and un­der­ground sources.