The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) is ad­vis­ing there is a sig­nif­i­cant con­cen­tra­tion of Sa­ha­ran dust present in the at­mos­phere to­day, and as such, per­sons who are sen­si­tive to this change in air qual­i­ty should take nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions.

In ad­di­tion, the Met Ser­vice says a grad­ual de­crease in this con­cen­tra­tion is ex­pect­ed by to­mor­row af­ter­noon, Fri­day 27 May 2022.

Ac­cord­ing to the Met Ser­vice fore­cast, to­day will be most­ly dull, hazy and at times breezy, with the in­ter­rup­tion of brief show­ers in a few ar­eas—which may bring some re­lief where the Sa­hara dust event is con­cerned.  Hazy con­di­tions will per­sist in­to tonight, and there will be a gen­tle breeze.

At present, the Air Qual­i­ty In­dex (AQI) for the Point Lisas area is 48, des­ig­na­tion GOOD, as record­ed at 10 am, so peo­ple can safe­ly en­joy their out­door ac­tiv­i­ties.

For Port of Spain, San Fer­nan­do and To­ba­go, as at 10 am, the AQI was record­ed as MOD­ER­ATE:

●   Port of Spain has an AQI of 54

●   San Fer­nan­do has an AQI of 81

●   To­ba­go has an AQI of 70.

This means res­pi­ra­to­ry symp­toms are pos­si­ble in un­usu­al­ly sen­si­tive in­di­vid­u­als.  In ad­di­tion, there could be pos­si­ble ag­gra­va­tion of heart or lung dis­ease in peo­ple with car­diopul­monary dis­ease and old­er adults.  Un­usu­al­ly sen­si­tive peo­ple are ad­vised to con­sid­er re­duc­ing pro­longed or heavy ex­er­tion.

In the past, the Min­istry of Health has ad­vised per­sons who al­ready have lung con­di­tions, like asth­ma, to stay in­doors, when pos­si­ble, and al­ways have their res­cue in­haler with them. It is ad­vice to which such per­sons should ad­here, to­day.

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About the Air Qual­i­ty In­dex (AQI)

The Air Qual­i­ty In­dex is a num­ber used by gov­ern­ment agen­cies to com­mu­ni­cate to the pub­lic how pol­lut­ed the air cur­rent­ly is or how pol­lut­ed it is fore­cast to be­come. As the AQI in­creas­es, an in­creas­ing­ly large per­cent­age of the pop­u­la­tion is like­ly to ex­pe­ri­ence in­creas­ing­ly se­vere ad­verse health ef­fects.