The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) has of­fi­cial­ly de­clared the start of the 2025 Dry Sea­son as of Tues­day, 14 Jan­u­ary 2025.

This marks the tran­si­tion of the re­gion’s at­mos­phere in­to a dri­er state, iden­ti­fied by in­ten­si­fied North At­lantic Sub-Trop­i­cal High-Pres­sure sys­tems, strength­ened trade-wind in­ver­sions, up­per-lev­el west­er­ly winds, and the In­ter-Trop­i­cal Con­ver­gence Zone (ITCZ) shift­ing south­wards.

Ear­li­er in Jan­u­ary, weak­er cli­mat­ic pat­terns de­layed the on­set of the Dry Sea­son, but re­cent weeks have shown few­er rainy con­di­tions due to typ­i­cal Dry Sea­son fea­tures, such as mid-lat­i­tude frontal sys­tems.

This pe­ri­od is char­ac­terised by re­duced at­mos­pher­ic mois­ture, in­creased sta­bil­i­ty, few­er deep clouds, warmer days, cool­er nights, and sur­face winds pre­dom­i­nant­ly from the east or north-east.

The Dry Sea­son’s ear­ly phase, from Jan­u­ary to March, is ex­pect­ed to be warmer and wet­ter than usu­al, which may al­le­vi­ate veg­e­ta­tion stress, im­prove wa­ter re­sources, and re­duce fire risks.

How­ev­er, these con­di­tions could al­so lead to in­creased mos­qui­to breed­ing due to wa­ter pool­ing. By April to May, the sea­son may bring Sa­ha­ran dust haze, re­duced air qual­i­ty, and height­ened risks of bush, for­est, and land­fill fires.

The pub­lic is urged to con­serve wa­ter, avoid burn­ing rub­bish, and adopt sus­tain­able prac­tices, while agen­cies should im­ple­ment mea­sures to mit­i­gate po­ten­tial im­pacts.