Kalain Ho­sein

Me­te­o­rol­o­gist/Re­porter

kalain.ho­sein@cnc3.co.tt

Even as res­i­dents in parts of south Trinidad are try­ing to clean up from floods on Mon­day, T&T is set to ex­pe­ri­ence more show­ers and thun­der­storms to­day and to­mor­row with the pas­sage of a weak trop­i­cal wave.

While rivers across south Trinidad re­main out of their banks to­day, this next round of rain­fall will pack gusty winds ex­ceed­ing 55 kilo­me­tres per hour, in­tro­duc­ing new haz­ards.

Through 10 am to­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) main­tained the River­ine Flood Alert (Yel­low Lev­el), which was down­grad­ed from Or­ange Lev­el yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. The alert was al­so ex­pand­ed east­ward to en­com­pass the Or­toire Riv­er Basin in south­east­ern Trinidad, where the Or­toire Riv­er, Nar­i­va Riv­er and its trib­u­taries be­gan to over­top from ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, flood­ing was re­port­ed along the Guayagua­yare Main Road, Rio Claro; Poole Val­ley Trace; Cedar Grove; North­west Trace, Mafek­ing; In­ner Mafek­ing; and the Na­pari­ma Ma­yaro Road, Mafek­ing, with ap­prox­i­mate­ly six to twelve inch­es of wa­ter on this main thor­ough­fare as of yes­ter­day.

Flood­ing con­tin­ued across parts of the South Oropouche Riv­er yes­ter­day, where the River­ine Flood Alert is still in ef­fect to­day. Flood­ing con­tin­ued to sub­side in Bar­rack­pore, Pe­nal and Debe grad­u­al­ly.

Over half an av­er­age June’s worth of rain­fall, with the av­er­age rain­fall to­tal at Pi­ar­co for June at 253.3 mil­lime­tres, fell across south Trinidad be­tween Sun­day and Mon­day, caus­ing mul­ti­ple rivers across south and west-cen­tral Trinidad to over­top.

While el­e­vat­ed up to yes­ter­day, oth­er ma­jor rivers across the is­land were con­tained with­in their banks. The Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is­sued a Riv­er Lev­el Ad­vi­so­ry yes­ter­day stat­ing that the Ca­roni Riv­er up­stream at El Car­men was at 73 per cent ca­pac­i­ty, while down­stream at Bam­boo Set­tle­ment #3 it was at 64 per cent ca­pac­i­ty—un­changed from 3 pm on Mon­day. The North Oropouche Riv­er at To­co Road, Aripo Riv­er, Arou­ca Riv­er and Ca­paro Riv­er all re­mained be­low 40 per cent ca­pac­i­ty. The South Oropouche Riv­er re­mained above 100 per cent ca­pac­i­ty.

In the lat­est River­ine Flood Alert yes­ter­day, the Met Of­fice said, “Of­fi­cial re­ports in­di­cate that flood wa­ters due to over­top­ping rivers (main­ly the South Oropouche Riv­er) are grad­u­al­ly re­ced­ing in some ar­eas. How­ev­er, this alert has been ex­tend­ed to south­east­ern ar­eas of Trinidad as the Or­toire Riv­er is cur­rent­ly bank full. Note that run-off will be slow­er near high tide times.” Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice, high tides at Port-of-Spain are ex­pect­ed at 12.40 am and 1.48 pm to­day.

While of­fi­cials con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor flood­ing to­day, an­oth­er haz­ard is ex­pect­ed - strong gusts ac­com­pa­ny­ing show­ers and iso­lat­ed thun­der­storms. As a re­sult, the Met Of­fice is­sued a High Wind Alert (Yel­low Lev­el) for Trinidad, To­ba­go and off­shore ar­eas from 8 am to­day through 2 pm Fri­day.

The TTMS stat­ed, “There is a high (70 per cent) po­ten­tial for gusts in ex­cess of 55km/h, es­pe­cial­ly in the vicin­i­ty of show­ers. Gusts may be brief but are ca­pa­ble of dis­plac­ing un­se­cured roofs and loose out­door ob­jects.” These strong winds can ad­verse­ly im­pact ma­rine craft, and vis­i­bil­i­ty may be ex­treme­ly low dur­ing dusk and dawn. Wind waves oc­ca­sion­al­ly near 2.5 me­tres are al­so ex­pect­ed.

The Met Of­fice cau­tioned that un­der the River­ine Flood Alert, the pub­lic should mon­i­tor weath­er con­di­tions and riv­er lev­els be­fore ven­tur­ing out, avoid ar­eas with flood­wa­ter, plan safe­ty mea­sures, in­clud­ing emer­gency food and wa­ter sup­plies, and fol­low gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials’ in­struc­tions.

As gusty winds are fore­cast through Fri­day, the TTMS al­so ad­vised the pub­lic to se­cure loose items and live­stock, take all nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions, and mon­i­tor weath­er con­di­tions and up­dates from of­fi­cial sources.