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Thursday, August 14, 2025

No ease from Sahara dust until Friday

by

1176 days ago
20220526
AQI update courtesy Environmental Management Authority (EMA).

AQI update courtesy Environmental Management Authority (EMA).

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) is ad­vis­ing there is a sig­nif­i­cant con­cen­tra­tion of Sa­ha­ran dust present in the at­mos­phere to­day, and as such, per­sons who are sen­si­tive to this change in air qual­i­ty should take nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions.

In ad­di­tion, the Met Ser­vice says a grad­ual de­crease in this con­cen­tra­tion is ex­pect­ed by to­mor­row af­ter­noon, Fri­day 27 May 2022.

Ac­cord­ing to the Met Ser­vice fore­cast, to­day will be most­ly dull, hazy and at times breezy, with the in­ter­rup­tion of brief show­ers in a few ar­eas—which may bring some re­lief where the Sa­hara dust event is con­cerned.  Hazy con­di­tions will per­sist in­to tonight, and there will be a gen­tle breeze.

At present, the Air Qual­i­ty In­dex (AQI) for the Point Lisas area is 48, des­ig­na­tion GOOD, as record­ed at 10 am, so peo­ple can safe­ly en­joy their out­door ac­tiv­i­ties.

For Port of Spain, San Fer­nan­do and To­ba­go, as at 10 am, the AQI was record­ed as MOD­ER­ATE:

●   Port of Spain has an AQI of 54

●   San Fer­nan­do has an AQI of 81

●   To­ba­go has an AQI of 70.

This means res­pi­ra­to­ry symp­toms are pos­si­ble in un­usu­al­ly sen­si­tive in­di­vid­u­als.  In ad­di­tion, there could be pos­si­ble ag­gra­va­tion of heart or lung dis­ease in peo­ple with car­diopul­monary dis­ease and old­er adults.  Un­usu­al­ly sen­si­tive peo­ple are ad­vised to con­sid­er re­duc­ing pro­longed or heavy ex­er­tion.

In the past, the Min­istry of Health has ad­vised per­sons who al­ready have lung con­di­tions, like asth­ma, to stay in­doors, when pos­si­ble, and al­ways have their res­cue in­haler with them. It is ad­vice to which such per­sons should ad­here, to­day.

_____

About the Air Qual­i­ty In­dex (AQI)

The Air Qual­i­ty In­dex is a num­ber used by gov­ern­ment agen­cies to com­mu­ni­cate to the pub­lic how pol­lut­ed the air cur­rent­ly is or how pol­lut­ed it is fore­cast to be­come. As the AQI in­creas­es, an in­creas­ing­ly large per­cent­age of the pop­u­la­tion is like­ly to ex­pe­ri­ence in­creas­ing­ly se­vere ad­verse health ef­fects.

Met ServiceHealthSahara DustWeatherMinistry of HealthEMA


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