Antara 15 Jan 16;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The natural phenomenon of La Nina, which usually triggers a heavy rainy season in Indonesia, is forecast to begin in September 2016, according to the national meteorological, climatology and geophysics agency (BMKG).
"We continue to monitor the signs of La Nina, and we do not exactly know how it would be. El Nino is forecast to weaken after March, following which there will be a balance, and thereafter, La Nina will occur whose impacts would likely be felt in the end of 2016," Head of BMKGs Meteorology and Publication Department, Mulyono R. Prabowo, stated here, recently.
He could not forecast the intensity of La Nina, but it would usually be milder. He, however, cautioned inhabitants of the regions prone to landslides to be on alert.
La Nina would likely trigger floods in urban areas such as Jakarta, he pointed out.
"Southern Jakarta will experience high precipitation, and it will affect Central Jakarta," he noted.
Sea tides and the lack of water absorption areas could worsen the flooding.
"In such a situation, water pumps will not be effective," he remarked.
Both El Nino and La Nina have an impact on Indonesia, he affirmed.
El Nino usually causes a significant reduction in precipitation and triggers droughts such as what had occurred in 2015.
Prabowo has forecast high precipitation in February and March this year, and later it will slow down.
The meteorology agency and the Agriculture Ministry have developed a dynamic planting calendar to help farmers decide when to plant and which crops are suitable for planting in certain seasons.(*)
La Niña expected to bring heavy rainfall
The Jakarta Post 16 Jan 16;
JAKARTA: The weather phenomenon known as La Niña, which usually triggers heavy rains in the country, is expected to start in September this year, according to the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG).
“We will continue to monitor the signs of La Niña, and we don’t exactly know what it will look like. The current El Niño is forecast to weaken after March, soon after we will have a lull. But soon after that we will have La Niña, the impact of which is likely to be felt at the end of 2016,” BMKG spokesperson Mulyono R. Prabowo said as quoted by Antara.
The BMKG however expected that the 2016 La Niña would be mild, although it could have the potential to trigger flooding in urban areas such as Jakarta.
“Southern Jakarta will experience heavy precipitation, and it will affect Central Jakarta,” he said.
Late last year the country experienced El Niño, a weather phenomenon related to the eastward drift of warm water in the Pacific Ocean, and it was considered to be the most severe since 1997.
Last year’s El Niño was also compounded by a so-called positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), also known as the Indian Niño, which is an irregular oscillation of sea-surface temperatures in which the western Indian Ocean becomes alternately warmer and then colder than the eastern part of the ocean.
A positive IOD tends to cause droughts in adjacent land areas of Indonesia and Australia.
