From 5:00 am on Fri­day, De­cem­ber 9, a Haz­ardous Seas Alert/YEL­LOW Lev­el will be ac­ti­vat­ed and cov­er north ex­posed and shel­tered nearshore coastal wa­ters of both Trinidad and To­ba­go, and re­main in ef­fect un­til 6:00 pm on Tues­day, De­cem­ber 13.

The lat­est ad­vi­so­ry from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) states that from Fri­day, large break­ing waves in ex­cess of 3 me­tres—due to long pe­ri­od swells—are like­ly along nearshore, north-ex­posed coast­lines of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Met Ser­vice fore­cast­ers al­so warn of chop­py con­di­tions de­vel­op­ing in the Gulf of Paria dur­ing the Alert pe­ri­od.

“Con­di­tions will be am­pli­fied dur­ing high tides and ex­ac­er­bat­ed at spring tides. Ef­fects will first be ex­pe­ri­enced on north­ern shore­lines of To­ba­go and then Trinidad with­in a cou­ple hours af­ter­wards,” the ad­vi­so­ry ex­plains.

Among the ex­pect­ed im­pacts dur­ing the up­com­ing Alert pe­ri­od (9-13 De­cem­ber) are dan­ger­ous con­di­tions for swim­ming and for small craft op­er­a­tions near af­fect­ed coast­lines.

As such, sea bathers, fish­er­men, and small craft op­er­a­tors are en­cour­aged to mon­i­tor sea con­di­tions while the Alert is ac­tive, as well as to ex­er­cise cau­tion and fol­low the in­struc­tions of life­guards.