The Meteorology Department announced yesterday (13) that El Niño conditions are likely to emerge with a probability of about 62 per cent and are expected to persist through at least the end of this year.
Speaking to The Daily Morning, operational weather forecaster and meteorologist at the Department, Preethika Jayakody said rains may continue this month (May) without disruption. In a possible El Niño situation, the guidelines and relevant data will be issued by the Department.
According to the Department, water should be managed carefully in the Districts that expect a low rainfall. Specifically, agricultural planning and irrigation management should be carried out during cultivation periods. However, she noted that the situation is not yet confirmed, and that the Department will continuously update the weather forecast with the most recent data.
She further urged that the Department finds the reports circulating on social media regarding weather forecasting extremely disturbing when it comes to communicating real-time data for citizens to make day-to-day decisions. The Department urged the general public to rely only on data provided by the Department. She said that people are often misled and become panicked by such forecasting, yet the only credible source that they have is the Department’s data. Addressing ideas widely circulating on social media about a possible “super El Niño” condition, as well as remedies suggested by those posting such information, she said that no such situation has emerged yet. “We don’t even use the technical term ‘super El Niño.’ It is strong, moderate, and weak - that is how we identify one. It is the World Meteorological Organisation and the Bureau of Meteorology that do the weather forecasting. We don’t do the forecasting individually; it is their data that we use, and such an event has not been announced. Further, after collaborating with South Asian countries last month (April), the Department has also produced a weather outlook relevant to us,” she said.
The comments come in the wake of the international media widely reporting a possible El Niño situation in the near future.
El Niño is a natural climate pattern characterised by the warming of sea surface temperatures in the Central and Eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. Occurring every two to seven years, this phenomenon weakens trade winds, pushing warm water east toward the Americas, which disrupts global weather patterns, leading to increased rainfall in some regions and droughts in others.