Kalain Ho­sein

Trinidad and To­ba­go is in the path of Po­ten­tial Trop­i­cal Cy­clone Two (PTC2), prompt­ing of­fi­cials to place the coun­try un­der a Trop­i­cal Storm Warn­ing which start­ed on Mon­day.

This is the third time the coun­try has been un­der a Trop­i­cal Storm Warn­ing in five years.

The Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter (NHC) yes­ter­day placed PTC2 at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,080 km east of Trinidad, with max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 65 KM/H, mov­ing west-north­west near 30 KM/H with a min­i­mum cen­tral pres­sure of 1009 mil­libars. It fea­tures trop­i­cal-storm-force winds which ex­tend out­wards up to 95 kilo­me­tres north of its cen­ter.

Based on the NHC’s fore­cast track, the sys­tem will pass near or over por­tions of the south­ern Wind­ward Is­lands by lat­er to­day.

The ap­prox­i­mate cen­ter is fore­cast to tra­verse north­ern Trinidad but its im­pacts will ex­tend well be­yond the cen­ter.

The Po­ten­tial Trop­i­cal Cy­clone des­ig­na­tion is used on sys­tems that have not yet formed in­to a trop­i­cal de­pres­sion or storm but pose a trop­i­cal cy­clone threat to land ar­eas, al­low­ing the NHC to is­sue ad­vi­sories, watch­es and warn­ings.

The NHC last night gave PTC2 a high chance of trop­i­cal cy­clone for­ma­tion over the next 48 hours and five days, at 70 per cent and 90 per cent re­spec­tive­ly.

The NHC fore­casts this sys­tem to de­vel­op in­to Trop­i­cal Storm Bon­nie be­fore mov­ing across Trinidad and To­ba­go. Strength­en­ing is fore­cast through to­mor­row (Wednes­day).

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice, in their sec­ond up­date of the Trop­i­cal Storm Warn­ing yes­ter­day, pe­ri­ods of heavy to in­tense show­ers and/or thun­der­storms, which can re­sult in rain­fall ac­cu­mu­la­tions in ex­cess of three inch­es, are like­ly.

They added that gusty winds in ex­cess of 70 km per hour can be ex­pect­ed. These wind gusts can break tree branch­es, dis­place un­se­cured roofs and loose out­door ob­jects and can even top­ple over un­healthy trees. The risk of land­slides/land­slips is like­ly in prone ar­eas and sea con­di­tions can oc­ca­sion­al­ly be­come rough.

The NHC has a high­er rain­fall fore­cast for Trinidad and To­ba­go, Grena­da, and north­east­ern Venezuela of be­tween four to six inch­es (100-150 mil­lime­ters). They fore­cast winds of 40 knots (74 KM/H) and gusts up to 50 knots (92.6 KM/H) as the sys­tem moves across T&T in­to Wednes­day morn­ing.

Cit­i­zens were urged to plan their evac­u­a­tion to a shel­ter if it be­comes nec­es­sary and to have emer­gency food and wa­ter sup­plies on stand­by, se­cure loose out­door items and live­stock. The ad­vi­so­ry ad­vised af­fect­ed per­sons not to wade or dri­ve through flood wa­ters, pre-po­si­tion sand­bags if their area floods and mon­i­tor riv­er lev­els. It al­so ad­vised that cit­i­zens fol­low the in­struc­tions of Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

The Trop­i­cal Storm Warn­ing (Or­ange Lev­el) is set to re­main in ef­fect un­til 5 pm Wednes­day, as trop­i­cal storm con­di­tions are fore­cast to af­fect the coun­try to­day in­to to­mor­row. A Trop­i­cal Storm Warn­ing means that trop­i­cal storm con­di­tions are ex­pect­ed some­where with­in the warn­ing area with­in 36 hours. A Trop­i­cal Storm Warn­ing is al­so in ef­fect for Grena­da and its de­pen­den­cies.

Fol­low­ing the sys­tem’s pas­sage across the Wind­wards, it will move across the South­ern Caribbean Sea, near the north­ern coast of Venezuela, on Wednes­day in­to Thurs­day.