Kalain Ho­sein

kalain.ho­sein@guardian.co.tt

Me­te­o­rol­o­gist/Re­porter

For the third time this week, heavy af­ter­noon show­ers and thun­der­storms flood­ed parts of Trinidad, mak­ing sev­er­al road­ways in cen­tral and north­west­ern ar­eas im­pass­able yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Though the day start­ed out sun­ny, af­ter mid­day, an ex­plo­sive clus­ter of thun­der­storms de­vel­oped across west-cen­tral, north-cen­tral, and north­west­ern Trinidad, pro­duc­ing vi­o­lent rain­fall rates.

Parts of Mar­aval, San­ta Cruz, St James, Co­corite, Wood­brook, and Port-of-Spain were flood­ed in the north­west. Along Sad­dle Road in San­ta Cruz, the up­per San Juan Riv­er over­topped its banks in the vicin­i­ty of San Juan North Sec­ondary, leav­ing mo­torists strand­ed as the road be­came im­pass­able due to high wa­ters and de­bris.

Mean­while, low­er Port-of-Spain was not spared for the sec­ond time this week af­ter the same heavy thun­der­storms led to sig­nif­i­cant street flood­ing from Laven­tille to Wood­brook, with ar­eas near South Quay be­com­ing im­pass­able. Videos cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia showed parts of Ari­api­ta Av­enue and Pan­ka Street in the vicin­i­ty of Mu­cu­rapo Ceme­tery, St James, be­com­ing im­pass­able with flood wa­ters be­tween ap­prox­i­mate­ly two and three feet.

As the af­ter­noon pro­gressed, these tor­ren­tial thun­der­storms moved east and south across Trinidad, with ad­di­tion­al heavy rain­fall de­vel­op­ing. In in­te­ri­or ar­eas of cen­tral Trinidad, parts of Cunu­pia, Clax­ton Bay, Ca­paro, Tabaquite, Jern­ing­ham Junc­tion, Todds Road, and Ravine Sable ex­pe­ri­enced flood­ing. In­to the evening, the Ca­paro Riv­er re­mained out­side its banks in sev­er­al ar­eas, leav­ing mo­torists strand­ed as they wait­ed for the wa­ters to re­cede along the Ca­paro Val­ley Bras­so Road near Breed­ing Unit, at Durham Mills Road, Palmiste, and near Thomp­son Road.

Those in south Trinidad, while spared the brunt of Wednes­day’s heavy rains, saw an omi­nous sight as a short-lived wa­ter­spout formed just a few hun­dred me­tres off the coast of Mos­qui­to Creek in the Gulf of Paria. It was seen from Debe, Fyz­abad, Gulf View, La Ro­main, and South Oropouche. The as­so­ci­at­ed thun­der­storm slow­ly moved in­to the Gulf of Paria, away from land, through the af­ter­noon.

On Wednes­day, T&T ex­pe­ri­enced a day with over­all winds re­main­ing light to near calm, and un­der sun­ny con­di­tions dur­ing the morn­ing, strong day­time heat­ing led to the de­vel­op­ment of show­ers and thun­der­storms. Abun­dant mois­ture was present due to the pas­sage of a well-de­fined trop­i­cal wave overnight, but most of the as­so­ci­at­ed weath­er re­mained across the Lee­wards, well north of T&T.

How­ev­er, on days where winds are light to near calm, and there is suf­fi­cient mois­ture and in­sta­bil­i­ty, show­ers and thun­der­storms can be­come lo­cal­ly se­vere along west­ern and hilly ar­eas of Trinidad—a norm dur­ing the Wet Sea­son.

This pat­tern is fore­cast to con­tin­ue in­to the week­end, which means more af­ter­noon heavy show­ers and thun­der­storms are like­ly. While there were no alerts, watch­es, or warn­ings in ef­fect from the T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS), the au­thor­i­ty for weath­er and cli­mate in­for­ma­tion in the coun­try rou­tine­ly warns of street/flash flood­ing and gusty winds in heavy show­ers and thun­der­storms.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTMS, to­day’s fore­cast of “most­ly fair con­di­tions will be in­ter­rupt­ed by part­ly cloudy spells with few show­ers and a 40 per cent (medi­um) chance of heavy show­ers/thun­der­storms. Night: Most­ly fair con­di­tions will tran­si­tion to part­ly cloudy with few ear­ly morn­ing show­ers.” As al­ways dur­ing the wet sea­son, the Met Of­fice has warned the pub­lic that gusty winds and street or flash flood­ing can oc­cur in or near heavy show­ers and thun­der­storms.