Kalain Ho­sein

Me­te­o­rol­o­gist/Re­porter

kalain.ho­sein@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) has high­light­ed more 125 com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try with el­e­vat­ed flood po­ten­tial dur­ing the 2023 wet sea­son.

This is the sec­ond year the Met Of­fice has is­sued its Flood Po­ten­tial Out­look for the coun­try, with a sub­stan­tial in­crease in the num­ber of com­mu­ni­ties high­light­ed com­pared to 2022.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTMS, the ar­eas of most sig­nif­i­cant risk for flood­ing in­clude the Ca­roni, North Oropouche, and South Oropouche riv­er basins.

In ad­di­tion, 55 com­mu­ni­ties were giv­en mod­er­ate flood po­ten­tial, com­pared to nor­mal, main­ly across west­ern and south-cen­tral ar­eas of Trinidad, in­clud­ing the mid­dle Ca­roni Riv­er Basin and 70 com­mu­ni­ties have been high­light­ed with slight flood po­ten­tial com­pared to nor­mal. In Trinidad, these com­mu­ni­ties are spread wide­ly across the is­land, with the high­est con­cen­tra­tion of com­mu­ni­ties lo­cat­ed in cen­tral and east.

The Met Of­fice said: “There is an el­e­vat­ed flood po­ten­tial, with a high­er-than-nor­mal flood po­ten­tial in north­east Trinidad, near Va­len­cia, San­gre Grande, in­clud­ing Ve­ga de Oropouche, Fish­ing Pond, San­gre Chiq­ui­to, and en­vi­rons. Sim­i­lar el­e­vat­ed po­ten­tial ex­ists in the South Oropouche Riv­er Basin, Pe­nal, Debe, Princes Town, and parts of Cou­va.

“Flood po­ten­tial is mod­er­ate­ly high­er than nor­mal for St He­le­na and en­vi­rons, Plum Mi­tan and en­vi­rons, parts of Ma­yaro, the city of Port-of-Spain, Mar­aval and low­er Diego Mar­tin.”

For To­ba­go, 17 com­mu­ni­ties across the west­ern half of the is­land were high­light­ed as hav­ing a slight­ly high­er than nor­mal flood po­ten­tial.

In their out­look, the TTMS not­ed that ar­eas which are not colour-cod­ed al­so have flood risks, but the chances are not as high as those that are colour-cod­ed.

For 2023, the TTMS in­tro­duced the near-nor­mal cat­e­go­ry that cap­tured a sub­stan­tial num­ber of com­mu­ni­ties, while no com­mu­ni­ties were placed un­der a high risk of flood­ing or “much high­er than nor­mal.” The Met Of­fice high­light­ed 28 com­mu­ni­ties in this near-nor­mal flood risk, main­ly in north­ern Trinidad and west­ern To­ba­go, in­clud­ing mul­ti­ple com­mu­ni­ties with­in the Diego Mar­tin area, To­co, and parts of west­ern and the wind­ward-fac­ing re­gions of To­ba­go.

Un­like last year, the po­ten­tial for flood­ing has sig­nif­i­cant­ly ex­pand­ed across the west­ern halves of both Trinidad and To­ba­go. Last year, 81 com­mu­ni­ties were high­light­ed for their above-nor­mal po­ten­tial for flood­ing. This year, that to­tal stands at 125, with 47 com­mu­ni­ties hav­ing near-nor­mal chances.