The Trinidad and Tobago Meteorological Services

The Trinidad and Tobago Meteorological Services is a Division of the Ministry of the Environment and Water resources. It operates the following main divisions:

A Main Meteorological and Forecast Office located at the South Terminal Building at Piarco Airport

An Upper Air Station located opposite to Air Guard station.

A Climatological and Technical Division at the same location at the Upper Air Station

A Meteorological Observing Station at Crown point Airport, Tobago

Trained Observers located at Piarco and Crown Point keep a round the clock weather watch, recording their observations and exchanging data internationally via swift telecommunications. Meteorologists at the Forecast Office provide a wide variety of weather forecasts to a broad spectrum of interests such as aviation, maritime, agriculture, construction, tourism etc. Roughly 80% of the activities at the Synoptic Office are geared to the service of aviation.

The Upper Air Station twice daily in the rainy season and once daily in the dry season sounds the upper atmosphere using balloon-borne weather instruments whose data are radioed back to the station for processing. This radio sounding of the atmosphere provides temperature, humidity and wind information right into the stratosphere and contributes to an understanding of the three-dimensional structure of the atmosphere on semi/diurnal basis.

The fully computerized Climate Section provides local climate data services to a wide array of users (e.g. commercial, insurance, industrial, educational, agricultural) mainly for socio-economic planning and development. The activities of this division take on a prominent role especially in the light of the current, urgent, global environmental problems and concerns.

The Crown Point Meteorological Office in Tobago began operations as an observing station in 1968. Traditional surface weather observing has always been its core function but soon after its inception it became the site of one of the first set of weather radars to be installed in the Caribbean. In 1990 it became mandatory for the Officer-in-charge to be a qualified Meteorologist and more recently another full-time Meteorologist has been added to the staff. The functions of this professional include interpreting technical information for the Tobago consumers, providing input for the country forecast issued from the main office in Trinidad and Tobago issuing a customized forecast specifically for the tourists in both Trinidad and Tobago.