Trinidad and To­ba­go is in for a wet and windy week­end, with suc­ces­sive trop­i­cal waves ex­pect­ed to sweep across the is­lands over the next 72 hours.

The T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) has is­sued a Yel­low Lev­el Ad­verse Weath­er Alert, which takes ef­fect from mid­day to­day and re­mains in place un­til 10 pm on Mon­day. The alert cov­ers both is­lands.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTMS, show­ers and iso­lat­ed thun­der­storms are ex­pect­ed to­day, while more in­tense weath­er is fore­cast from to­mor­row morn­ing through Mon­day, as an ac­tive trop­i­cal wave is fore­cast to move through the area.

“Gusty winds can oc­cur in the vicin­i­ty of heavy show­ers/thun­der­storms which may dis­place loose out­door items and fur­ther ag­i­tate seas. Heavy down­pours can lead to street/flash flood­ing as well as lo­calised pond­ing and may trig­ger land­slides/land­slips es­pe­cial­ly along hill­sides and oth­er vul­ner­a­ble ar­eas,” said the TTMS.

Mo­torists and res­i­dents, es­pe­cial­ly those in flood-prone or land­slide-prone com­mu­ni­ties, are be­ing urged to re­main vig­i­lant and take all nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions.

A Yel­low Lev­el Haz­ardous Seas Alert is al­so in place, hav­ing come in­to ef­fect Thurs­day at 8 pm and end­ing at 4 pm to­day.

The alert cov­ers coastal ar­eas of north­ern and north­east­ern To­ba­go, and to a less­er ex­tent, north­ern Trinidad.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTMS, “High en­er­gy, norther­ly, long-pe­ri­ods swells of up to 15 sec­onds, in com­bi­na­tion with spring tides, are ex­pect­ed to af­fect the is­lands, ini­tial­ly To­ba­go from Fri­day night, then grad­u­al­ly and in­ter­mit­tent­ly af­fect­ing Trinidad.”

Some im­pacts could in­clude larg­er than nor­mal break­ers with large, bat­ter­ing waves in the surf zone and the dis­rup­tion of near-shore ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ing fish­ing, swim­ming and boat moor­ings. Ma­rine users are urged to mon­i­tor sea con­di­tions close­ly, se­cure coastal prop­er­ty, and avoid un­nec­es­sary nearshore ac­tiv­i­ties un­til con­di­tions im­prove.

In an­tic­i­pa­tion of the rough weath­er, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen and Se­nior Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Co­or­di­na­tor Jer­ry David said all mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions and Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Units (DMUs) are on alert this week­end. The min­istry said there will be co­or­di­na­tion among gov­ern­ment agen­cies to en­sure readi­ness in the event of an emer­gency.

Cit­i­zens are ad­vised to stay in­formed through of­fi­cial up­dates, keep emer­gency num­bers handy, and avoid flood­ed ar­eas. For in­for­ma­tion on shel­ters, sand­bags, or emer­gency as­sis­tance, res­i­dents can con­tact their lo­cal mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion or vis­it the min­istry’s so­cial me­dia pages and web­site, where DMU hot­line num­bers are list­ed.