Tropical wave triggers the official start to the wet season

Seigo­nie Mohmmed

Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 2026 wet sea­son has of­fi­cial­ly be­gun, two weeks ear­li­er than last year, sig­nalling the start of what could be an­oth­er crit­i­cal pe­ri­od for flood­ing, wa­ter man­age­ment and dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness.

In a state­ment is­sued Tues­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) de­clared the start of the wet sea­son on May 5, com­pared with May 19, when last year’s sea­son of­fi­cial­ly be­gan.

The de­c­la­ra­tion was trig­gered by mea­sur­able rain­fall as­so­ci­at­ed with the first trop­i­cal wave of the year, one of the main dri­vers of rain­fall for the coun­try.

Ac­cord­ing to TTMS, the trop­i­cal wave had been un­der ob­ser­va­tion since it moved off the west coast of Africa on April 30 be­fore pro­duc­ing mea­sur­able rain­fall across parts of the is­lands, in­clud­ing 2.1 mil­lime­tres at Pi­ar­co and 2.5 mil­lime­tres at Char­lot­teville.

The Met Of­fice de­fines the of­fi­cial start of the wet sea­son as mea­sur­able rain­fall of 0.1 mil­lime­tres or more linked to ei­ther a trop­i­cal wave or the In­ter-Trop­i­cal Con­ver­gence Zone (ITCZ).

The de­c­la­ra­tion comes as gov­ern­ment agen­cies are in­ten­si­fy­ing na­tion­al flood pre­pared­ness ef­forts ahead of the rainy months, with con­cerns grow­ing over blocked drains, ur­ban flood­ing and in­creas­ing­ly un­pre­dictable rain­fall events.

Still, TTMS says May re­mains a tran­si­tion month, mean­ing rain­fall episodes are like­ly to be bro­ken by dry spells and pe­ri­od­ic Sa­ha­ran dust out­breaks.

Look­ing ahead, TTMS fore­casts near-nor­mal rain­fall for Trinidad through May, June and Ju­ly, while To­ba­go is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive be­low-nor­mal rain­fall dur­ing the same pe­ri­od.

Fore­cast­ers are al­so mon­i­tor­ing the de­vel­op­ment of the El Niño–South­ern Os­cil­la­tion (EN­SO), which may strength­en to mod­er­ate or strong in­ten­si­ty by the peak of the At­lantic hur­ri­cane sea­son.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, a strong El Niño tends to sup­press At­lantic hur­ri­cane ac­tiv­i­ty, but TTMS is ad­vis­ing cit­i­zens not to be­come com­pla­cent.

In its state­ment, the ser­vice re­mind­ed the pub­lic that even dur­ing a be­low-av­er­age hur­ri­cane sea­son, “a sin­gle di­rect hit can cause se­vere dam­age,” urg­ing cit­i­zens, emer­gency agen­cies and vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties to re­main pre­pared.

A more de­tailed hur­ri­cane out­look for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s area of in­ter­est will be pre­sent­ed at the Na­tion­al Cli­mate Out­look Fo­rum on May 20.

For now, the ear­li­er-than-usu­al wet sea­son de­c­la­ra­tion serves as a clear sig­nal: the rains are here, and with them, the an­nu­al test of the coun­try’s re­silience.