Indonesian rains to continue all year: government agency

Reuters AlertNet 11 Aug 10;

JAKARTA, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Unseasonally heavy rains will continue across Indonesia for the rest of this year, officials from the country's state weather agency said on Wednesday, after rains have damaged crops, hampered miners and boosted inflation.

Officials said in a twice-yearly weather forecast on Wednesday the unseasonal rains in the country, which has seen rain continue after the normal end of the wet season in April, were because of the La Nina weather anomaly.

"In our 2010-2011 rainy season estimation, we can see that rains will start earlier than they used to in 60.5 percent of Indonesia," said Soeroso Hadiyanto of the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics agency (BMKG).

This could be bad news for the government, which is trying to ensure inflation does not get out of hand. Rains have reduce crop harvests and helped push annual inflation to a 15-month high of 6.22 percent in July, above the central bank's end-2010 target.

Food prices were already expected to rise further in the next month because of the festive Ramadan season, with inflation fears pushing debt investors towards the front end of the bond curve.

"Shorter-dated bonds are safer with rising inflation expectations," said Ari Pitoyo, head of research at PT Mandiri Sekuritas.

In Sumatra, a sources of commodities such as coffee, tin and coal, a rainy season due to start in October had already started this month, said Hadiyanto.

Coffee exporters in Indonesia's main growing province of Lampung in Sumatra have stockpiled at least 120,000 tonnes of beans after heavy rains damaged the quality. [ID:nSGE67A0C3]

Rains are also a concern for miners. Rains led to a force majeure of coal output at a unit of Indonesian coal miner PT Bayan Resources in Kalimantan last month, affecting a 115,000 tonne August shipment to trader Vitol. [ID:nSGE66Q0F2]

Most of Indonesia usually has a dry season in July, August and September, but agency data in July and for the first 10 days of August showed that extreme weather has hit the archipelago, with rainfall intensity above normal except in some parts of eastern province Papua.

In coming months, some parts of the main island Java, all of tourist resort island Bali, eastern Nusa Tenggara and some parts of Papua will be dry, Hadiyanto said.

Extreme weather could also disturb sea transportation as the agency expected high waves will hit Indonesian waters, he said, in a week that saw at least 11 people die after a boat in Nusa Tenggara was swamped by big waves.

(Reporting by Telly Nathalia; Editing by Neil Chatterjee)

Agency warns of extreme weather in August, September
The Jakarta Post 11 Aug 10;

Heavy rains, strong winds and high waves will mark the transition period from dry to rainy seasons between August and September, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) warns.

“We call on the public to keep an eye to the transition period in August and September, marked by extreme phenomena," deputy head of the agency for climatology Soeroso Hadiyanto was quoted by Antara news agency on Wednesday.

The agency has registered 52 extreme rainfalls in the first 11 days of August across the country at an intensity of more than 59 mm/day.

Previously the agency had forecast more extreme rainfalls in August than in July, when the number of extreme rainfalls was recorded at 125.

Thick clouds could now be seen in the skies over Sumatra, western part of Java, western and southern part of Kalimantan, western part of Sulawesi and part of Papua during the transition period.

However, the areas stretching from East Java to East Nusa Tenggara would have less rainfalls in the same period, Soeroso said. "This is because the sea surface temperature in the western and eastern parts of Indonesia is hot, meaning that positive temperature anomaly has an impact on the fairly high intensity of evaporation which later forms clouds to cause rains," he said.

According to the agency's provisional weather forecast, rains will fall in 19 percent of the Indonesian territory in September, 42.3 percent in October and 33.2 percent in November.