Trinidad and Tobago placed under first Hot Spell Alert for 2026

Seigo­nie Mo­hammed

Trinidad and To­ba­go has been placed un­der a Yel­low-Lev­el Hot Spell Alert as tem­per­a­tures are ex­pect­ed to climb over the com­ing weeks, with “feels-like” tem­per­a­tures po­ten­tial­ly reach­ing as high as 44°C in some ar­eas.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) ad­vis­es that the alert takes ef­fect from 2 p.m. on Sep­tem­ber 24 and re­mains in place un­til 4 p.m. on Oc­to­ber 31. It is the first Hot Spell Alert is­sued by the Ser­vice for 2026. The alert cov­ers both Trinidad and To­ba­go and car­ries a “mon­i­tor” re­sponse un­der the Yel­low-Lev­el sta­tus.

A hot spell does not sim­ply mean one un­usu­al­ly hot af­ter­noon. The TTMS de­fines it as at least five con­sec­u­tive days when max­i­mum tem­per­a­tures reach or ex­ceed 34°C in Trinidad and 33°C in To­ba­go.

The Met Ser­vice said day­time tem­per­a­tures over the com­ing weeks could reach around 34°C or high­er in Trinidad and 33°C or high­er in To­ba­go, par­tic­u­lar­ly when there is less cloud cov­er and rain­fall. The hottest part of the day is gen­er­al­ly be­tween 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Hu­mid­i­ty could make con­di­tions feel con­sid­er­ably hot­ter. De­pend­ing on lo­ca­tion, hu­mid­i­ty, winds and the amount of de­vel­op­ment in an area, “feels-like” tem­per­a­tures could ap­proach 44°C. Ur­ban and dense­ly built-up com­mu­ni­ties could ex­pe­ri­ence high­er tem­per­a­tures be­cause build­ings and paved sur­faces re­tain heat.

While trop­i­cal waves, the In­ter-Trop­i­cal Con­ver­gence Zone (ITCZ) and oth­er weath­er sys­tems could still bring show­ers dur­ing the re­main­der of the heat sea­son, the TTMS said rain­fall is not ex­pect­ed to pro­vide a sus­tained break from the heat. Any rain­fall may bring tem­po­rary re­lief be­fore hot con­di­tions re­turn as skies clear.

The pub­lic is be­ing ad­vised to lim­it pro­longed ex­po­sure to ex­ces­sive heat, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the hottest hours, and to re­main hy­drat­ed. Old­er adults, young chil­dren, peo­ple with cer­tain un­der­ly­ing health con­di­tions, out­door work­ers and those un­der­tak­ing stren­u­ous phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty should take ad­di­tion­al pre­cau­tions.

Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber are the fi­nal two months of Trinidad and To­ba­go's heat sea­son, and the TTMS is urg­ing the pub­lic to con­tin­ue mon­i­tor­ing of­fi­cial fore­casts and Hot Spell Alerts, as con­di­tions can change from day to day.