In­clement weath­er is fore­cast to con­tin­ue af­fect­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go through Mon­day evening, as the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) has ex­tend­ed the Ad­verse Weath­er Alert un­til 8:00 PM Mon­day.
 
Over the last 24 hours, gusty winds up to 65 kilo­me­ters per hour, ac­com­pa­ny­ing thun­der­storms, swept across much of Trinidad. Wind dam­age has been re­port­ed in Diego Mar­tin, Port of Spain, Mor­vant, San­ta Cruz, and La­van­tille, with mul­ti­ple downed trees, util­i­ty poles, and pow­er out­ages.
 
Sig­nif­i­cant street and flash flood­ing have al­so af­fect­ed ar­eas of south­ern Trinidad such as Pe­nal, Debe, Bar­rack­pore, and sur­round­ing en­vi­rons.
 
Ac­cord­ing to the TTMS, “There is a high (70-80%) chance of brisk heavy show­ers/thun­der­storms with ac­com­pa­ny­ing gusty winds in ex­cess of 55km/hr. These wind gusts may be brief but are ca­pa­ble of break­ing tree branch­es, dis­plac­ing un­se­cured roofs and loose out­door ob­jects, and can even top­ple over un­healthy trees.”
 
They added, “Heavy show­ers/thun­der­storms are ex­pect­ed to in­crease in fre­quen­cy as the evening pro­gress­es. Street flood­ing is al­so like­ly in heavy down­pours and seas can be­come ad­di­tion­al­ly ag­i­tat­ed in strong winds.”
 
The colour of the alert in­di­cates the sever­i­ty of the event and the prob­a­bil­i­ty of the event oc­cur­ring. Cur­rent­ly, the alert lev­el is at Yel­low. This means that the haz­ard has been ob­served, but the sever­i­ty of im­pacts is mod­er­ate for this par­tic­u­lar alert. You should be aware of the haz­ards in your area as­so­ci­at­ed with gusty winds in ex­cess of 55 KM/H, street, and flash flood­ing as well as land­slides.
 
There is the po­ten­tial for pos­si­ble in­juries for a mod­er­ate Ad­verse Weath­er Alert, where be­hav­ioral changes are re­quired to en­sure safe­ty. There may be mi­nor prop­er­ty dam­age, with in­come-earn­ing tem­porar­i­ly dis­rupt­ed, and a cou­ple of com­mu­ni­ties are af­fect­ed.
 
This in­clement weath­er is due to a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in mois­ture, in­sta­bil­i­ty, and con­ver­gence be­hind the ax­is of a Trop­i­cal Wave, which is al­so be­ing fol­lowed by an in­crease in low-lev­el wind speeds.
 
The Met Of­fice con­tin­ues to ad­vise the pub­lic to se­cure loose out­door items, do not dri­ve through flood wa­ters, and mon­i­tor weath­er con­di­tions and up­dates from of­fi­cial sources. In ad­di­tion, small craft op­er­a­tors should be on the alert for above nor­mal or chop­py sea con­di­tions in strong winds.
 
The of­fi­cial fore­cast for T&T tonight calls for “lin­ger­ing show­ers will grad­u­al­ly give way to most­ly set­tled and hazy con­di­tions. For to­mor­row, “pre­dom­i­nant­ly dull/hazy and at time breezy con­di­tions in­ter­spersed with part­ly cloudy pe­ri­ods and brief show­ers. Overnight will be set­tled and hazy de­spite one or two brisk show­ers.”

Re­porter: Kalain Ho­sein