Dry season around the corner: Agency
Dry season around the corner: Agency
JAKARTA (JP): The dry season this year will begin as early as April in Jakarta and most northern areas of East Java, which means that during March there will still be rainfall, the weather forecast agency says.
Some parts of eastern Indonesia, such as eastern Lombok and Sumbawa's western coast, will even enter the dry season as early as the first ten days of this month, the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said yesterday.
Karjoto Santokusumo, the agency chairman, told reporters that 60 percent of the dry season of this year would be "normal," which will hopefully help boost food production.
The eastern regions of the country, from Bali up to East Timor, except the two mentioned areas, are expected to enter the dry spell later than the western part, as early as April, he said.
Karjoto added that most of Sumatra, except Batanghari, Indragiri Hilir and south-east Aceh, would only dry out in May. In the same month the dry season will begin in northern Central Java and East Java, he said.
The eastern part of South Kalimantan and East Kalimantan and the central part of South Sulawesi and the tip of Minahasa, in the north of the island, would be the latest regions, with the dry season beginning only in July.
The central part of West Java and Central Java, the source of many rivers, will get the dry season in June.
Rain during the dry season out of Java island will be "above normal" or "normal", he said, except for southern Sumatra which will be "below normal".
Karjoto observed that for the past five years there have been "normal" rainy seasons, he said.
"The rainfall during the dry season of 1995 hit 103 percent," Karjoto said. "1995 was the most 'friendly' year from the point of view of food production."
In the southern hemisphere there is a phenomenon called "ENSO" (El Nino-Southern Oscillation), which affected rainfall in Indonesia in 1995. As a result, the dry season of that year was "normal", as the weather agency had predicted.
Karjoto said that ENSO weakened during the last part of 1995 and the beginning of 1996. The phenomenon is now being followed by its antithesis, "La Nina", which increases rainfall.
"If ENSO comes back, we will have to be careful in either 1997 or 1998 or 1999," he said. He did not give a more precise statement because the agency has not found the correct prediction method. (16)