Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

As Trop­i­cal Storm El­sa con­tin­ues to move to­wards the Less­er An­tilles, most of Trinidad and To­ba­go has been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing heavy rain­fall, with over 1,000 light­ing strikes be­ing record­ed over the is­lands in a one-hour span.

Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion from the T&T Weath­er Cen­tre (TTWC), show­ers and thun­der­storms as­so­ci­at­ed with a band of con­vec­tion ahead of TS El­sa con­tin­ue to af­fect the is­lands.

The TTWC says be­tween 9 pm and 11 pm, two inch­es of rain­fall had been record­ed and street/flash flood­ing, gusty winds and fre­quent light­ning are like­ly to con­tin­ue.

In its 11 pm up­date on TS El­sa, the Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­tre said the storm is now a lit­tle stronger and mov­ing quick­ly to the Less­er An­tilles.

In its 8 pm up­date, the NHC said TS El­sa had wind speeds up to 44 km/hr with max­i­mum sus­tained winds up to 75 km/hr. At 11 pm, the max­i­mum sus­tained winds had in­creased to near 85 km/hr and TS El­sa is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue gain­ing strength over the next 12 to 24 hours.

It was about 420 km east of Bar­ba­dos at 11 pm and Trop­i­cal Storm warn­ings re­main in place for Bar­ba­dos, Mar­tinique, St Lu­cia and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

Trop­i­cal storm watch­es re­main in place for Grena­da and its de­pen­den­cies, the south­ern and west­ern coasts of Haiti from the south­ern bor­der of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, the south­ern coast of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and Ja­maica.

The NHC says a Trop­i­cal Storm Warn­ing means that trop­i­cal storm con­di­tions are ex­pect­ed some­where with­in the warn­ing area. The NHC says a Trop­i­cal Storm Watch means trop­i­cal storm con­di­tions are pos­si­ble with­in the area. In the case of TS El­sa, the NHC says these con­di­tions are pos­si­ble with­in 36 hours.