The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) is fore­cast­ing an above-av­er­age 2023 At­lantic Hur­ri­cane Sea­son for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Met Of­fice is fore­cast­ing two to six named storms, with four named storms most like­ly form­ing and one to three of those be­com­ing hur­ri­canes, with two hur­ri­canes most like­ly.

The TTMS fore­cast for trop­i­cal cy­clones con­tains an area south of 15°N lat­i­tude, be­tween the east­ern Caribbean and the west coast of Africa, with­in the North At­lantic Ocean.

Fore­cast­ers at the Met Of­fice said there is a 34% chance of above-nor­mal, 22% chance of be­low-nor­mal, and 44% chance of near-nor­mal ac­tiv­i­ty. Based on the 1991-2020 cli­ma­to­log­i­cal av­er­age, four named storms form in this area, with one be­com­ing a hur­ri­cane.

In their cli­mate out­look pre­sen­ta­tion to­day, the TTMS ex­plained that sea sur­face tem­per­a­tures (SSTs) east of Trinidad and To­ba­go to the west coast of Africa are above av­er­age with pock­ets of near-nor­mal SSTs in and around the east­ern Caribbean. In­creased SSTs near T&T can en­hance rain­fall in the area.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, an El Niño Watch is in place for the east­ern-cen­tral Pa­cif­ic Ocean, with a mod­er­ate prob­a­bil­i­ty of an El Niño de­vel­op­ing be­tween May to Ju­ly 2023. An El Niño will un­fa­vor­ably in­flu­ence rain­fall and cloud de­vel­op­ment over T&T.

Fur­ther­more, the north-south SST gra­di­ents, known as the At­lantic Merid­ion­al Mode (AMM), are cur­rent­ly in their pos­i­tive mode and are like­ly to con­tin­ue through Au­gust-Sep­tem­ber-Oc­to­ber. A pos­i­tive AMM is as­so­ci­at­ed with en­hanced In­tertrop­i­cal Con­ver­gence Zone ac­tiv­i­ty shift­ing fur­ther north and re­duc­ing up­per-lev­el west­er­ly winds across the At­lantic Main De­vel­op­ment Re­gion.

The North At­lantic Os­cil­la­tion has al­ter­nat­ed be­tween phas­es since April 2023. It is fore­cast to move in­to the pos­i­tive phase in June 2023, re­duc­ing trade winds across the At­lantic Ocean.

Com­bined, these fea­tures sup­port near to above-av­er­age hur­ri­cane sea­son ac­tiv­i­ty east of Trinidad and To­ba­go. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Gary Ben­jamin, the TTMS Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Me­te­o­rol­o­gist, it on­ly takes one storm to di­rect­ly im­pact the coun­try for it to be an ac­tive hur­ri­cane sea­son for Trinidad and To­ba­go. He ad­vis­es that all cit­i­zens and res­i­dents of Trinidad and To­ba­go be pre­pared for the up­com­ing Wet and Hur­ri­cane Sea­son.