Kalain Ho­sein

Me­terol­o­gist/Re­pot­er

kalain.hoi­sein@cnc3,co.tt

Al­though it pos­es no di­rect threat to Trinidad and To­ba­go, all eyes are on Trop­i­cal Storm Bret, which was lo­cat­ed just over 1,300 kilo­me­tres east of To­ba­go yes­ter­day evening. Trop­i­cal storm watch­es have been is­sued for Bar­ba­dos and Do­mini­ca, where trop­i­cal storm con­di­tions are pos­si­ble on Thurs­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­tre (NHC), yes­ter­day, Bret moved quick­ly west near 30 KM/H, and this gen­er­al mo­tion is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue through the next sev­er­al days. The NHC said, “On the fore­cast track, the cen­tre of Bret is ex­pect­ed to move across por­tions of the Less­er An­tilles Thurs­day af­ter­noon and Thurs­day night, and then move across the east­ern Caribbean Sea on Fri­day.”

Trop­i­cal Storm Bret strength­ened over a 24-hour pe­ri­ods, with max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 75 KM/H and high­er gusts. The NHC fore­casts ad­di­tion­al strength­en­ing Wednes­day, and Bret will re­main a trop­i­cal storm when it reach­es the cen­tral Less­er An­tilles by Thurs­day in­to Thurs­day night. Bret re­mains a small trop­i­cal storm with trop­i­cal storm-force winds ex­tend­ing 75 kilo­me­tres out­ward from the cen­tre.

The NHC said, “Bret is fore­cast to ap­proach the Less­er An­tilles through Thurs­day morn­ing and then move across the is­lands Thurs­day af­ter­noon and Thurs­day night as a trop­i­cal storm, bring­ing a risk of flood­ing from heavy rain­fall, strong winds, and dan­ger­ous waves along the coast.”

At the time of the storm’s pas­sage across the Less­er An­tilles, the NHC is fore­cast­ing Bret to have sus­tained winds up to 100 KM/H and gusts to 120 KM/H. Through Sat­ur­day morn­ing, storm to­tal rain­fall amounts of four to six inch­es (100-150 mm) with max­i­mum amounts of 10 inch­es (250 mm) are pos­si­ble across por­tions of the Less­er An­tilles from Guade­loupe south­ward to St Lu­cia. The NHC adds that rain­fall amounts of two to four inch­es (50-100 mm) are pos­si­ble across Bar­ba­dos and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines. The heavy rain­fall could lead to flash flood­ing, es­pe­cial­ly across ar­eas of high­er ter­rain, with iso­lat­ed ur­ban or street flood­ing pos­si­ble.

For T&T, how­ev­er, there are no alerts, watch­es or warn­ings in ef­fect from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS). Their of­fi­cial state­ment on the sys­tem stat­ed, “The TTMS wish­es to un­der­score that this sys­tem pos­es no im­me­di­ate threat to Trinidad, To­ba­go, Grena­da and its de­pen­den­cies.”