Res­i­dents across T&T are be­ing urged to re­main vig­i­lant as Ad­verse Weath­er Alert #3 – Yel­low Lev­el re­mains in ef­fect un­til 10 p.m. to­day, cov­er­ing both is­lands and sur­round­ing wa­ters.

The T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) said a strong trop­i­cal wave mov­ing across the south­ern Caribbean has been gen­er­at­ing un­sta­ble at­mos­pher­ic con­di­tions since ear­ly Sat­ur­day, trig­ger­ing fre­quent show­ers, gusty winds, and iso­lat­ed thun­der­storms. To­ba­go, in par­tic­u­lar, has ex­pe­ri­enced re­peat­ed bouts of heavy rain­fall and thun­der­storm ac­tiv­i­ty.

Al­though the main ax­is of the wave has al­ready moved west­ward be­yond the coun­try, lin­ger­ing mois­ture and low-lev­el in­sta­bil­i­ty in its wake con­tin­ue to sup­port wide­spread cloudi­ness and rain­fall. The TTMS said these con­di­tions are be­ing fur­ther en­hanced by an up­per-lev­el trough sys­tem and mod­er­ate wind shear, both of which are help­ing to sus­tain con­vec­tion over T&T.

As a re­sult, pe­ri­ods of in­ter­mit­tent rain­fall are ex­pect­ed through­out the day, with brief lulls in be­tween. The ser­vice warned that in­tense down­pours could pro­duce street and flash flood­ing, lo­cal­ized pond­ing in low-ly­ing ar­eas, and land­slides or land­slips along hill­sides and road­ways.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, strong gusty winds, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing or near thun­der­storms, may dis­place loose out­door ob­jects, dam­age roofs, and ag­i­tate seas, pos­ing risks to small craft op­er­a­tors and coastal com­mu­ni­ties.

The trop­i­cal wave cur­rent­ly has a low (30 per cent) chance of de­vel­op­ing in­to a trop­i­cal cy­clone with­in the next 48 hours as it moves west­ward in­to the cen­tral Caribbean. How­ev­er, the TTMS not­ed that its trail­ing mois­ture is ex­pect­ed to keep the at­mos­phere moist and un­sta­ble across T&T for much of to­day.

Re­gion­al weath­er cen­tres, in­clud­ing the Bar­ba­dos Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice, have al­so re­port­ed that the same sys­tem brought heavy rain­fall and flood­ing to parts of the south­ern Wind­ward Is­lands over the week­end.

The TTMS has ad­vised res­i­dents to se­cure loose out­door items, ex­er­cise cau­tion while dri­ving, and avoid flood­ed road­ways. Those liv­ing in flood- and land­slide-prone ar­eas are urged to re­main alert and take nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions.

“The pub­lic is ad­vised to con­tin­ue mon­i­tor­ing of­fi­cial up­dates from the TTMS and to be pre­pared for im­pact­ful weath­er,” the ser­vice said in its lat­est bul­letin.

Up­dates will con­tin­ue to be is­sued as weath­er con­di­tions evolve.