Kalain Ho­sein

The 2021 Dry Sea­son has of­fi­cial­ly start­ed.

Com­pared to av­er­age dry-sea­sons and last year's record-break­ing dry-sea­son, the 2021 Dry Sea­son is like­ly to pro­duce more rain­fall over­all over most ar­eas, but a lot of dry­ness is still like­ly. Lo­cal­ized rain­fall events are like­ly to push the month­ly rain­fall to­tals to above av­er­age from just a few rainy days dur­ing the month.

Af­ter con­sid­er­ing wan­ing rain­fall rates, the ab­sence of typ­i­cal wet-sea­son weath­er sys­tems, and the in­creas­ing pres­ence of dry sea­son weath­er and cli­mat­ic fea­tures, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice de­clared the 2021 Dry Sea­son has start­ed.

The sea­son is be­ing ush­ered in by slight­ly cool­er tem­per­a­tures, low­er rel­a­tive hu­mid­i­ty lev­els, and much stronger low­er-lev­el wind speeds. This is due, in part, to an en­hanced North At­lantic Sub-Trop­i­cal High (NASH) pres­sure sys­tem that has shift­ed its cen­ter fur­ther east­ward, ex­tend­ed its reach­es south­ward and to a greater depth, com­pared to two to three weeks ago. The shift­ing and strength­en­ing of the NASH in re­cent weeks have al­so led, at times, to an en­hanced trade wind in­ver­sion and at oth­er times to the pres­ence of sub­si­dence in­ver­sions. To­geth­er, these fea­tures have act­ed as sup­pres­sors of sig­nif­i­cant rain-bear­ing cloud de­vel­op­ment and are typ­i­cal re­gion in­di­ca­tors hav­ing tran­si­tioned to its dri­er state.

What to ex­pect

A less dry than av­er­age dry sea­son is fa­vored across Trinidad and To­ba­go. The coun­try can ex­pect rain­fall to be more lo­cal­ized gen­er­al­ly, but some mod­er­ate to heavy rain­fall events af­ter sev­er­al days of dry­ness can push the month­ly rain­fall to­tals to above-av­er­age to­tals in just a few rain days. Above-av­er­age rain­fall ac­cu­mu­la­tions in the dry sea­son of­ten do not mean plen­ty of rain­fall.

Mean­while, the odds are tilt­ed to­wards the coun­try ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a warmer than av­er­age dry sea­son. Still, some nights will be chilly in the first two months of the sea­son, as rel­a­tive­ly cold­er air is like­ly to fun­nel and en­croach in­to the re­gion due to the sub-trop­i­cal high-pres­sure sys­tem's lo­ca­tion and mi­grat­ing weath­er sys­tems from cold­er lat­i­tudes. The months of April and May are like­ly to pro­duce one or two short-du­ra­tion hot spells.