Mere hours af­ter the last Haz­ardous Seas Alert was dis­con­tin­ued by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS), which was in ef­fect for the pre­vi­ous 13 days, the coun­try has been placed un­der an­oth­er, more se­vere Haz­ardous Seas Alert.

Long-pe­ri­od swells orig­i­nat­ing from the far North At­lantic Ocean have trav­elled thou­sands of kilo­me­tres to pro­duce large, break­ing waves along At­lantic- and north­ern-fac­ing coast­lines across the Less­er An­tilles.

Since De­cem­ber 9, these waves gen­er­al­ly have peaked around 3 me­tres (10 feet), but from Fri­day af­ter­noon, waves along T&T’s north­ern coasts are fore­cast to reach as high as 3.5 me­tres (11.5 feet).

Coastal com­mu­ni­ties along Trinidad and To­ba­go’s north­ern and north­east­ern coast­lines have been placed un­der the Met Of­fice’s first-ever Or­ange-Lev­el Haz­ardous Seas Alert from 2 pm Fri­day, De­cem­ber 23, 2022, through noon Wednes­day, De­cem­ber 28, 2022.

Through Mon­day, De­cem­ber 26, 2022, spring tides are al­so on­go­ing. Spring tides are high­er-than-usu­al high tides and low­er-than-usu­al low tides due to the new and full moons that oc­cur month­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTMS, T&T should al­so ex­pect chop­py con­di­tions along north­ern-fac­ing coast­lines in the Gulf of Paria, with large waves and haz­ardous con­di­tions am­pli­fied dur­ing high tides.

The Met Of­fice says ef­fects from these swells are fore­cast to be­gin ini­tial­ly along the north­ern coasts of To­ba­go and then Trinidad with­in a cou­ple of hours af­ter.

For an Or­ange-Lev­el Haz­ardous Seas Alert, se­vere im­pacts are like­ly. There is the po­ten­tial for a loss of a sin­gle life or se­ri­ous in­juries; phys­i­cal de­fences are need­ed, ma­jor loss­es are pos­si­ble in con­fined ar­eas, in­come earn­ing is im­pos­si­ble for sev­er­al days, and sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties are af­fect­ed where ex­ter­nal help is need­ed for re­cov­ery.

Im­pacts in­clude dan­ger­ous con­di­tions for swim­ming and small craft op­er­a­tions, very high surf, dan­ger­ous rip cur­rents, mod­er­ate to sig­nif­i­cant beach ero­sion, and coastal flood­ing in low-ly­ing ar­eas.

The TTMS ad­vis­es sea bathers, fish­er­men, small craft op­er­a­tors, and oth­er coastal in­ter­ests to se­cure lives, liveli­hoods, and coastal prop­er­ty, ex­er­cise ex­treme cau­tion along the coast, pre­pare for dan­ger­ous break­ing waves and cur­rents, fol­low the in­struc­tions of life­guards and mon­i­tor of­fi­cial news sources.