TTMS: Tropical wave no longer expected to develop

The threat of trop­i­cal cy­clone de­vel­op­ment from a trop­i­cal wave ap­proach­ing the Caribbean has di­min­ished, but fore­cast­ers are turn­ing their at­ten­tion to an­oth­er sys­tem far­ther east in the At­lantic that could en­counter more favourable con­di­tions for de­vel­op­ment.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) said Tues­day that the first trop­i­cal wave, now ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,300 kilo­me­tres east of the Wind­ward Is­lands, is no longer ex­pect­ed to be­come bet­ter or­gan­ised.

Its chance of de­vel­op­ing in­to a trop­i­cal cy­clone over the next sev­en days has fall­en to ze­ro per cent.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTMS, mod­er­ate con­cen­tra­tions of Sa­ha­ran dust sur­round­ing the sys­tem are sup­press­ing the de­vel­op­ment of the strong, or­gan­ised thun­der­storms need­ed for trop­i­cal cy­clone for­ma­tion.

De­spite the re­duced de­vel­op­ment po­ten­tial, the wave will con­tin­ue mov­ing west­ward to­ward the re­gion and the Met Ser­vice said it will mon­i­tor its pos­si­ble in­flu­ence on lo­cal weath­er con­di­tions.

There are cur­rent­ly no trop­i­cal storm or hur­ri­cane watch­es or warn­ings in ef­fect for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Trop­ics stir­ring as at­ten­tion shifts to sec­ond At­lantic wave

At­ten­tion is now shift­ing far­ther east, where a sec­ond trop­i­cal wave is mov­ing west­ward across the cen­tral trop­i­cal At­lantic.

Ac­cuWeath­er fore­casts sug­gest that the sys­tem is ex­pect­ed to en­counter a more favourable en­vi­ron­ment over the next two and sev­en days. How­ev­er, its prospects will de­pend heav­i­ly on its track and the at­mos­pher­ic con­di­tions it en­coun­ters as it ap­proach­es the Less­er An­tilles.

Wind shear re­mains one of the im­por­tant lim­it­ing fac­tors.

Stronger shear clos­er to the Caribbean could dis­rupt thun­der­storms around the dis­tur­bance and make it dif­fi­cult for a well-de­fined cir­cu­la­tion to de­vel­op. A track far­ther north, how­ev­er, could al­low the sys­tem to avoid some of the more hos­tile con­di­tions and main­tain bet­ter or­gan­i­sa­tion over warm At­lantic wa­ters.

The in­ter­ac­tion be­tween the two waves could al­so be­come im­por­tant.

As the lead­ing wave moves west­ward, it could help dis­place some of the dry, dusty air across the Main De­vel­op­ment Re­gion, po­ten­tial­ly leav­ing a some­what more favourable en­vi­ron­ment be­hind it for the trail­ing dis­tur­bance.

A tem­po­rary re­duc­tion in wind shear could pro­vide an­oth­er win­dow for the sec­ond wave to be­come bet­ter or­gan­ised.

Both sys­tems are trav­el­ling through the At­lantic's Main De­vel­op­ment Re­gion, the belt of trop­i­cal wa­ters be­tween Africa and the Caribbean where many of the basin's trop­i­cal storms and hur­ri­canes de­vel­op.

For the wider Less­er An­tilles, the even­tu­al track of the sec­ond dis­tur­bance will there­fore be im­por­tant over the com­ing days.

For now, how­ev­er, it re­mains a de­vel­op­ing sit­u­a­tion rather than an im­me­di­ate threat to the re­gion.

The At­lantic has pro­duced two named storms so far dur­ing the 2026 hur­ri­cane sea­son: Arthur and Bertha. Should an­oth­er sys­tem strength­en in­to a trop­i­cal storm, the next name on this year's At­lantic list is Cristo­bal.