Kalain Ho­sein

Me­te­o­rol­o­gist/Re­porter

kalain.ho­sein@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) is ad­vis­ing all ma­rine in­ter­ests to “lim­it ma­rine ac­tiv­i­ties where pos­si­ble” from Fri­day morn­ing through Tues­day next week.

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS), the Haz­ardous Seas Alert (Yel­low Lev­el) has been is­sued for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s north­ern and east­ern coast­lines un­til 2:00 p.m. Tues­day. The alert goes in­to ef­fect for the coun­try at 8:00 AM Fri­day as al­ready present long-pe­ri­od swells oc­cur in tan­dem with a surge of low-lev­el winds and spring tides.

The TTMS states, “Long pe­ri­od swells are like­ly to co­in­cide with spring tides as well as a surge of low-lev­el winds. This can re­sult in chop­py sea con­di­tions and bat­ter­ing waves at coastal re­gions which can be ex­ac­er­bat­ed dur­ing high tides. Ma­rine in­ter­ests, main­ly nearshore ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ing fish­ing, sea bathing and small craft moor­ing can be ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed.”

Waves in open wa­ters are fore­cast to re­main be­tween 1.5 and 2.0 me­tres. In shel­tered ar­eas, waves are fore­cast to be near 1.0 me­tre and oc­ca­sion­al­ly chop­py.

The cur­rent yel­low-lev­el alert in­di­cates that haz­ardous seas are like­ly, but the sever­i­ty of im­pacts is mod­er­ate.

For a mod­er­ate, yel­low-lev­el Haz­ardous Seas Alert, there is the po­ten­tial for pos­si­ble in­juries, where be­hav­iour­al changes are re­quired to en­sure safe­ty. There may be mi­nor prop­er­ty dam­age, with in­come-earn­ing tem­porar­i­ly dis­rupt­ed, and some com­mu­ni­ties are af­fect­ed.

The TTMS ad­vis­es all ma­rine in­ter­ests to mon­i­tor sea con­di­tions and ex­er­cise cau­tion and fish­er­folk are ad­vised to take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tion