Pramono to Resume Weather Modification Operations in Jakarta

The Jakarta Provincial Government (Pemprov DKI Jakarta) continues to monitor daily weather data from the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) in order to anticipate the potential for extreme weather in the capital.

In response to the recent spell of heavy rainfall, Jakarta Governor Pramono Anung stated that weather intervention is a crucial step in preventing hydrometeorological disasters.

“If rainfall is indeed high, weather modification is unavoidable,” Pramono said at Taman Semanggi in South Jakarta on Friday (20 February).

“The bottom line is that whenever the BMKG indicates daily rainfall could exceed 200 millimetres, we will definitely carry out weather modification,” he added.

Pramono noted that weather modification has in fact already been conducted quietly on several occasions when field conditions demanded it, in order to keep the situation in the capital and its surrounding buffer zones under control.

“Every day we make decisions — whether or not people are aware of it — and in reality we have carried out weather modification several times when it was deemed necessary,” he said.

Pramono also claimed that the flooding which inundated 123 neighbourhood units (RT) and nine road sections in Jakarta on Friday morning had receded rapidly.

His administration confirmed that a number of major arterial roads prone to waterlogging had already dried out and were passable for vehicles as normal.

“I’ve been dealing with flooding since this morning. But it didn’t last long — within no more than an hour and a half to two hours, almost all roads were dry,” Pramono said.

The success in clearing the floodwaters within such a short timeframe was attributed to the close monitoring he personally conducted in the field.

“Because I keep a very tight watch on these matters,” Pramono said.