Jean-Marc Ram­per­sad

Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor

jean-marc.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

There is lit­tle to no con­cern of drought con­di­tions for next year’s dry sea­son, ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS). Their act­ing Chief Cli­ma­tol­o­gist, Kaidar Kissoon, said that the fore­cast calls for “a wet start to the 2026 dry sea­son.”

Kissoon con­tin­ued, “The ar­eas that are like­ly to get the high­est rain­fall to­tals are with­in the north-east­ern ar­eas of Trinidad and cen­tral To­ba­go.”

Speak­ing last Tues­day at the Na­tion­al Cli­mate Fo­rum (NCOF), of­fi­cials said gen­er­al­ly, for next year’s dry sea­son, wet­ter than usu­al con­di­tions are ex­pect­ed dur­ing the first half, and near nor­mal in the sec­ond half of the sea­son for both is­lands.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty were al­so present at the fo­rum. When asked about the wa­ter re­stric­tions and hose ban, they in­di­cat­ed that it is on­ly nec­es­sary when the dry sea­son is par­tic­u­lar­ly se­vere and may not be need­ed this time, giv­en the TTMS’ fore­cast. WASA al­so boast­ed of 100 per cent lev­els at the four main reser­voirs across Trinidad and To­ba­go, which is an op­ti­mum po­si­tion with the fast-ap­proach­ing dry sea­son.

Of­fi­cials not­ed that wet­ter than nor­mal con­di­tions for the dry sea­son will still amount to sig­nif­i­cant­ly less rain­fall than wet sea­son months and that wa­ter must still be con­served and man­aged ap­pro­pri­ate­ly, es­pe­cial­ly for the sec­ond half of the dry sea­son. The TTMS al­so ex­pect­ed, “Both day­time and night tem­per­a­tures to be above-nor­mal over both is­lands.” Ar­eas such as cities, ur­ban and built-up ar­eas, have the great­est odds for these warmer tem­per­a­tures, and there is even a mod­er­ate chance for short-du­ra­tion hot spells in May 2026, which is the first peak in the lo­cal heat sea­son.

The El Niño South­ern Os­cil­la­tion (EN­SO) phase and sea sur­face tem­per­a­tures (SSTs) are the main fac­tors in­flu­enc­ing this fore­cast.

TTMS Me­te­o­rol­o­gist Ean Wal­lace in­di­cat­ed that EN­SO is cur­rent­ly in a weak La Ni­na phase, which gen­er­al­ly trans­lates to wet­ter than nor­mal late wet sea­son and ear­ly dry sea­son con­di­tions lo­cal­ly. The La Niña phase is ex­pect­ed to last un­til Feb­ru­ary/March 2026. Al­so, warmer than nor­mal SSTs sur­round­ing T&T are ex­pect­ed to pro­vide fu­el for the wet­ter than usu­al con­di­tions.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the 2026 dry sea­son is shap­ing up to be rel­a­tive­ly mild; how­ev­er, the TTMS still en­cour­aged re­spon­si­ble wa­ter use and for au­thor­i­ties to re­view con­tin­gency plans to man­age dry sea­son spikes in vec­tor-borne dis­eases.