JEAN MARC RAM­PER­SAD

Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor & Weath­er An­chor

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) has fore­cast near-nor­mal rain­fall for the 2025 Wet Sea­son, with con­di­tions ex­pect­ed to be “wet as usu­al.”

Rain­fall is like­ly to favour east­ern ar­eas of Trinidad, where sea­son­al to­tals could ex­ceed 1,800 mil­lime­tres. In con­trast, to­tals across west­ern parts of both Trinidad and To­ba­go could fall as low as 1,000 mil­lime­tres.

Flood po­ten­tial is ex­pect­ed to re­main high­er than nor­mal in well-known flood-prone zones but is pro­ject­ed to be nor­mal in emerg­ing flood-prone ar­eas.

At the eigh­teenth Na­tion­al Cli­mate Out­look Fo­rum (NCOF) held on May 21, 2025, the TTMS al­so is­sued its hur­ri­cane sea­son fore­cast for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Area of In­ter­est.

It projects be­tween one and five named storms, with three be­ing the most like­ly out­come. Of those, one is the most prob­a­ble num­ber of hur­ri­canes to de­vel­op. This fore­cast dif­fers from broad­er in­ter­na­tion­al pre­dic­tions, as TTMS on­ly as­sess­es threats to Trinidad and To­ba­go and the East­ern Caribbean.

While av­er­age tem­per­a­tures are ex­pect­ed over­all, the TTMS has warned of an in­creased chance of hot days and short-du­ra­tion hot spells be­tween Au­gust and Oc­to­ber—T&T’s sec­ond heat sea­son. A hot spell, by their de­f­i­n­i­tion, oc­curs when tem­per­a­tures reach or ex­ceed 34 de­grees Cel­sius for five or more con­sec­u­tive days.

On the in­ter­na­tion­al front, the Unit­ed States’ Na­tion­al Ocean­ic and At­mos­pher­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion (NOAA) re­leased its hur­ri­cane sea­son fore­cast on May 22. It pre­dicts a 60 per­cent chance of an above-nor­mal sea­son, with 13 to 19 named storms, 6 to 10 hur­ri­canes, and 3 to 5 ma­jor hur­ri­canes.

The Caribbean In­sti­tute for Me­te­o­rol­o­gy and Hy­drol­o­gy (CIMH), a re­gion­al train­ing cen­tre, holds 70 per­cent con­fi­dence in its pre­dic­tion of 19 named storms, 9 hur­ri­canes, and 4 ma­jor hur­ri­canes.

The TTMS de­clared the start of the 2025 Wet Sea­son on Mon­day, May 19, fol­low­ing rain­fall in­di­rect­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with the In­ter-Trop­i­cal Con­ver­gence Zone (ITCZ).

The At­lantic Hur­ri­cane Sea­son, which falls with­in the Wet Sea­son, of­fi­cial­ly be­gins on June 1.