Rainy season to end in April, May

Rainy season to end in April, May

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The rainy season that has triggered hundreds of natural disasters
across the country will end early for many parts of the country,
the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) says.

BMG chief Gunawan Ibrahim said Wednesday that rains would stop
this month in many parts of Java, especially those in Central and
East Java, Bali, as well as West and East Nusa Tenggara.

Rain will cease in Jakarta in April, while in other parts of
the country, the season would end in May or June.

Gunawan warned that this would mean that people would have to
prepare for an early dry season.

Gunawan said people in Central Java, Kalimantan, Maluku and
Papua must prepare for possible droughts as these areas had
recorded the lowest rainfalls in the last 30 years.

Central Java is one of the top rice producing regions in the
country, while Kalimantan is home to millions of hectares of
natural forests.

Gunawan urged people in Central Java to adjust their planting
methods in light of the information, and people in Kalimantan,
especially in East Kalimantan, not to clear land by burning
forests.

"Central Java must be vigilant for paddy crop failure, while
East Kalimantan and surrounding provinces must be alert for fires
due to possible drought," Gunawan told a press conference.

The remaining areas of the country would experience normal dry
seasons, he said.

BMG made its predictions in consultation with the National
Aeronautical and Space Institute (LAPAN) and other relevant
ministries.

Mezak A Rataq, head of climate affairs at LAPAN, said a mild
El Nino would continue to hit the country, but its impact would
be minimized by the presence of the "dipole mode" warm water
phenomenon in the Indian Ocean near Sumatra.

"The dipole mode phenomenon brings rain to Sumatra and many
other areas in Indonesia," he said.

Indonesia has been hit by drought and forest fires in the dry
season and flooding and landslides in the rainy season for the
last few years.

Drought and fires were triggered by El Nino, and worsened by
illegal logging and land clearance through slash-and-burn
methods.

Illegal logging and land clearance has also prompted a number
of natural disasters in the rainy season.