Wear ap­pro­pri­ate cloth­ing, stay hy­drat­ed at all times, and keep out of di­rect sun­light to avoid sun­burn, is some of the ad­vice be­ing is­sued by the Met Ser­vice, as well as the Min­istries of Health and Ed­u­ca­tion, as the coun­try is ex­pect­ed to en­dure a ma­jor hot spell over the next two weeks.

The T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice has warned that from the 15th to 29th Sep­tem­ber 2023, there is an 80% prob­a­bil­i­ty that Trinidad will ex­pe­ri­ence ex­treme­ly hot con­di­tions, with tem­per­a­tures near 34.0°C or greater.  Mean­while, To­ba­go will have warm-to-hot con­di­tions near 32.5°C or greater.

“In cities, ur­ban and built-up ar­eas, the max­i­mum tem­per­a­tures are ex­pect­ed to be high (near to or greater than 34.0 °C) and feel-like tem­per­a­tures, par­tic­u­lar­ly when the winds are calm to light, will like­ly range be­tween 34.0°C and 44.0 °C.  The hottest time of the day is be­tween 10:00 am and 4:00 pm,” the Met Ser­vice ex­plained in an ad­vi­so­ry is­sued ear­li­er to­day.

The groups most vul­ner­a­ble dur­ing such con­di­tions have been iden­ti­fied as the el­der­ly, sick adults, and young chil­dren, for whom the high tem­per­a­tures can be quite haz­ardous.

In its ad­vi­so­ry, the Min­istry of Health en­cour­aged mem­bers of the pub­lic to:

“…check on fam­i­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly the el­der­ly and chil­dren, as very high tem­per­a­tures can be dan­ger­ous to one’s health…”

It list­ed sev­er­al signs to look out for, which in­di­cat­ed some­one is suf­fer­ing from heat stroke and/or heat ex­haus­tion:

●   High body tem­per­a­ture of 39 °C or high­er

●   Cold, pale, and clam­my skin

●   Fast, weak pulse – a sign of heat ex­haus­tion

●   Fast, strong pulse – a sign of heat stroke

●   Tired­ness or weak­ness

●   Headache

●   Nau­sea or vom­it­ing

●   Mus­cle cramps

●   Dizzi­ness and con­fu­sion

●   Faint­ing or pass­ing out

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has is­sued its own ad­vi­so­ry, urg­ing par­ents, teach­ers, and school ad­min­is­tra­tors to:

“…take pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures be­yond those al­ready be­ing im­ple­ment­ed, if re­quired, to safe­guard staff and stu­dents against the ef­fects of these high tem­per­a­tures...” 

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry iden­ti­fied sev­er­al mea­sures schools should un­der­take, in­clud­ing: 

1.   En­sure stu­dents re­main hy­drat­ed – stu­dents should be ad­vised to drink cool wa­ter, not sweet­ened or car­bon­at­ed bev­er­ages.

2.   Utilise any avail­able out­door shad­ed spaces for class time where pos­si­ble. Ad­just­ments to nor­mal school op­er­a­tions may be re­quired dur­ing this pe­ri­od.

3.   Mon­i­tor stu­dents’ ex­po­sure to di­rect sun­light. 

4.   Ex­er­cise vig­i­lance in mon­i­tor­ing stu­dents and staff for signs of heat-re­lat­ed ill­ness.

And the Health Min­istry shared tips on how to stay hy­drat­ed dur­ing the cur­rent “hot spell”.

●   Eat fruits and veg­eta­bles – At least 2-4 serv­ings of fruits dai­ly and eat­ing veg­eta­bles with every meal.

●   Drink at least 8-10 glass­es of wa­ter, dai­ly.

●   Avoid drinks with caf­feine and al­co­hol.

It is al­so en­cour­ag­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to pro­tect them­selves from the heat by:

●   Avoid­ing stren­u­ous ex­er­cise dur­ing the hottest times of the day (usu­al­ly 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.),

●   Stay­ing in­doors or in shad­ed ar­eas, when pos­si­ble,

●   Tak­ing fre­quent breaks or us­ing hats and um­brel­las while work­ing out­doors,

●   Wear­ing loose-fit­ting, light­weight, light-coloured cloth­ing,

●   Wear­ing sun­screen with SPF 30 and above.

Mean­while, the Met Ser­vice notes that Trinidad and To­ba­go cur­rent­ly is in its heat sea­son, which runs from May to Oc­to­ber.

“In gen­er­al, dur­ing Sep­tem­ber months, the is­lands ex­pe­ri­ence most­ly hot sun­ny pe­ri­ods and warm nights. The winds are gen­er­al­ly weak but with oc­ca­sion­al­ly mod­er­ate strength com­ing from the east to south­east with wind speeds of 20-30km/h,” the TTMS ad­vi­so­ry ob­served.

Ac­cord­ing to the Met Ser­vice, cli­mat­ic con­di­tions are per­fect for a “hot spell” this Sep­tem­ber, with many cli­mat­ic fea­tures work­ing to­geth­er to pro­mote warmer to hot­ter days.

“The winds are calm to light, with few­er cloudy pe­ri­ods which en­ables greater in­com­ing so­lar ra­di­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the mid-morn­ing to af­ter­noon pe­ri­ods,” the TTMS ex­plained.

Among the cli­mat­ic fea­tures cre­at­ing the per­fect “hot spell” are:

1. A mod­er­ate­ly strong El Ni­no which gen­er­al­ly re­stricts cloud de­vel­op­ment.

2. A neg­a­tive phase of the North At­lantic Os­cil­la­tion (NAO) which en­cour­ages weak winds across the Caribbean.

3. A warmer than usu­al At­lantic Ocean Sea Sur­face Tem­per­a­tures (SSTs) east of the Trinidad and To­ba­go.

4. The ap­par­ent lo­cal po­si­tion of the sun at our lat­i­tude.

5. South­east­er­ly flow of wind from the equa­to­r­i­al re­gion.