Showers bring cool relief
Dry spell may be over as air quality improves after two straight days of rain
Amresh Gunasingham, Straits Times 11 Mar 10;
THE hot, dry spell that has baked Singapore for well over a month may finally be coming to an end.
A prolonged shower yesterday - the second in as many days - brought day-time temperatures down to a more comfortable 29 deg C in some parts of the island, the 'coolest' Singapore has been for several days.
Just as important, between 30mm and 45mm of rain fell on parts of the island - more than the 6.3mm registered for the whole of last month, which made it the driest month in recorded history.
It was the second straight day of fairly heavy showers: On Monday, up to 42mm of rain doused Mandai, cooling the area by as much as 6 deg C from a high of over 34 deg C.
More rain is expected over the next few weeks, so Singaporeans can expect cooler and wetter days, although there may be some extended periods of dry weather from time to time.
Yesterday's rainfall also cleared the air, literally.
By the time it was over, much of the acrid pall over the country caused by bush fires on Tuesday was also gone.
The Pollutant Standards Index, which measures air quality, dropped to 44 yesterday, which is in the good range, down from the four-month high of 53 on Tuesday.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force said no calls about bush fires were received yesterday.
More than 206 bush fires have been reported so far this year, with more than half of them occurring last month.
Though this is lower than the 341 cases reported in the first two months of last year, it is still higher than the norm for the early part of the year, when cooler, wetter weather generally prevails.
Wetter weather is expected in the next few weeks because of the approaching inter-monsoon season, a period during which winds are constantly shifting in direction and can bring intermittent rain, the National Environment Agency's Meteorological Services Division said yesterday.
'This will help to alleviate the dry and warm weather conditions we have been experiencing in recent weeks,' a spokesman said.
A weak monsoon surge was responsible for the rain over the past two days, he added.
Such surges occur when a sudden cold snap engulfs Central Asia, forming a high pressure system that strengthens north-easterly winds blowing across the South China Sea.
These winds pick up moisture as they reach the tropics.
Though experts say the worst may be over, they cautioned that spells of hot and dry weather could return.
Climatologist Matthias Roth, from the department of geography at the National University of Singapore, predicts that the El Nino weather phenomenon will last for at least another two months.
'We could very well go through another two-week spell without rain,' he said.
Singapore's driest month
Straits Times 11 Mar 10;
FEBRUARY 2010 has gone down as the driest month here - since weather records were first kept in 1869 - with just 6.3mm of rain.
The dry spell helped fuel the current heatwave that has resulted in extraordinary conditions:
# There were 22 days, between Feb1 and the first nine days of this month, in which the temperature soared above 33 degC.
# Just last Saturday, the mercury hit a scorching 35.5 deg C, the third highest recorded in history.
# A stretch of 13 consecutive dry days (when less than a millimetre of rain is registered over a 24-hour period) was recorded, starting Feb25.
# There were four days last month and three days this month (so far) when not a single drop of rain fell over Singapore.
# The current heatwave comes on the back of a similar dry spell last year.
Between Jan 5 and Feb 15, there were 42 consecutive dry days recorded at the National Environment Agency's weather station in the east, making it the longest dry spell recorded in history.
Morning rain provides respite from hot and dry spell
Joanne Chan Channel NewsAsia 10 Mar 10;
SINGAPORE: Heavy showers on Wednesday morning provided respite from the hot and dry spell gripping Singapore.
And the weatherman said more rain can be expected in the coming weeks as the inter-monsoon season approaches.
The Meteorological Services Division said the showers on Wednesday were due to a weak monsoon surge, which refers to a strengthening of winds over the South China Sea.
Such a monsoon surge is common during the Northeast monsoon months of December and January, but can also occur occasionally towards the end of the monsoon season in March.
Between 30 and 45 millimetres of rainfall were recorded in the southern and central parts of Singapore on Wednesday.
- CNA/ir
