Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

In 2013, CNC3 News wel­comed its first fe­male weath­er an­chor and me­te­o­rol­o­gist, Seigo­nie Mo­hammed.

While a ca­reer in broad­cast tele­vi­sion was not ini­tial­ly part of Mo­hammed’s plans, look­ing back, she re­mem­bered the qui­et prayer of a lit­tle girl from South Trinidad.

“When I was younger, my dad would take the fam­i­ly from south to north and we’d go to the beach or some­thing. And right where Ra­dio Trinidad used to be, there was al­ways this big ban­ner with Samp­son Nan­ton, Roger Sant, Francesca Hawkins and the likes. I would al­ways tell my­self; I want to be on that ban­ner. I didn’t know how I was go­ing to get there, but I re­mem­bered pray­ing about it and say­ing that I want to do some­thing good, and I want to change lives and make an im­pact,” she re­called.

She was less cer­tain about how she would make that im­pact, but her cu­rios­i­ty about weath­er and the en­vi­ron­ment was al­ready tak­ing shape.

“I am re­al­ly afraid of light­ning and thun­der. So, I want­ed to find out more about why you hear such a loud noise? What hap­pens when it’s dark at night and it’s rain­ing? Up to to­day, I still can’t sleep prop­er­ly at night. I’m al­ways up when there’s a thun­der­storm be­cause I’m al­ways con­cerned about flood­ing,” she not­ed.

Find­ing her way in­to me­te­o­rol­o­gy

At just 17, Mo­hammed’s fear and cu­rios­i­ty about the weath­er led her to an ad­ver­tise­ment in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Guardian for an en­try-lev­el me­te­o­rol­o­gist’s as­sis­tant at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice.

“I want­ed to find out more about the weath­er and the en­vi­ron­ment around us and how we can be part of so­lu­tions to what­ev­er is go­ing on. And I thought well, I like me­te­o­rol­o­gy. I like it not just for look­ing up at the clouds and look­ing up at the sky, but be­cause of my fear. So, I said, hey, why not? Let’s do this,” she said.

Mo­hammed worked at the Met Of­fice for a few months be­fore mov­ing to Bar­ba­dos to study me­te­o­rol­o­gy and even­tu­al­ly re­turn­ing to work at the Met Of­fice in T&T.

How­ev­er, Mo­hammed ad­mit­ted that al­though she loved what she was do­ing at the Met Of­fice, she felt some­thing was miss­ing in the lo­cal me­dia land­scape.

“Be­ing at the Met Of­fice in Pi­ar­co and be­ing so young in the field, I felt that there was not a lot of fe­male rep­re­sen­ta­tion in broad­cast. At that time, the in­dus­try was dom­i­nat­ed by men, and no of­fence to the men they were do­ing such a great job. But I felt like some­thing was miss­ing. Even in the way that we told me­te­o­rol­o­gy at the Met Of­fice, it didn’t feel like it was be­ing trans­lat­ed the same way on tele­vi­sion,” she not­ed.

From Me­te­o­rol­o­gy to news­room

Mo­hammed de­cid­ed to pur­sue her de­gree in jour­nal­ism, and dur­ing her first year, she was re­cruit­ed by CNC3 as a weath­er an­chor and re­porter.

“My first day at CNC3 was scary. I came in­to the of­fice and while every­one was friend­ly, I was in­tim­i­dat­ed be­cause I felt like the youngest per­son among peo­ple you see on tele­vi­sion every night and won­dered if I could live up to it,” she re­called.

De­spite the nerves, Mo­hammed quick­ly found her foot­ing, with some of her ear­li­est as­sign­ments giv­ing her a first­hand un­der­stand­ing of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that came with the job.

“I think with­in my first week, I was out with Chester Sam­bra­no chas­ing Red Man af­ter the tor­na­do in Trinidad, and that was the most in­sane ex­pe­ri­ence. But it re­al­ly helped me to un­der­stand that what we do, and even the small­est things mat­ter. The year 2018 was re­al­ly mem­o­rable too be­cause we would have had the earth­quake and the great floods of 2018, as they call it,” she said.

Learn­ing the pow­er of in­for­ma­tion

For Mo­hammed, cov­er­ing those events was more than a pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence, but it re­in­forced the im­por­tance of pro­vid­ing cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion to peo­ple dur­ing some of their most dif­fi­cult mo­ments.

She re­called how CNC3’s cov­er­age dur­ing the 2018 floods meant work­ing late in­to the night, keep­ing the pub­lic in­formed and help­ing peo­ple stay aware of what was hap­pen­ing as the coun­try grap­pled with wide­spread flood­ing and dis­rup­tions to tech­nol­o­gy and com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Those ex­pe­ri­ences, she said, be­came part of what kept her drawn to jour­nal­ism and its abil­i­ty to serve the pub­lic.

A re­turn with a new pur­pose

In 2018, Mo­hammed left CNC3 to pur­sue oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties in jour­nal­ism. Dur­ing that time, she con­tin­ued her stud­ies and deep­ened her knowl­edge of the en­vi­ron­ment and cli­mate change.

In April 2026, Mo­hammed re­turned to CNC3 as Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor, sev­en years af­ter leav­ing the sta­tion.

“I’m back, not as the same per­son, but stronger and with a big­ger plan. The ti­tle Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor sounds fan­cy, but it’s all about the en­vi­ron­ment. Cli­mate change sto­ries are al­so hu­man sto­ries. It talks about more than just the earth is warm­ing up, tem­per­a­tures are ris­ing, sea lev­els are ris­ing. It’s more than that. It’s how a fish­er­man can be im­pact­ed every sin­gle day. It’s about not just Trinidad and To­ba­go hav­ing an oil and gas sec­tor and what that’s do­ing to the en­vi­ron­ment, but how you now as a shop­per, a con­sumer, as some­body who is dri­ving your ve­hi­cle every day, how you can make this plan­et bet­ter, how you can make it clean­er, and how we can all as a com­mu­ni­ty,” she said.

Mo­hammed said she hopes to use the new role to chal­lenge mis­in­for­ma­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion about cli­mate change while help­ing peo­ple un­der­stand how en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues af­fect their every­day lives.

For the lit­tle girl who once prayed to do some­thing good, change lives and make an im­pact, it is an­oth­er chap­ter in that jour­ney.