Pagasa: El Niño over; brace for La Niña

MANILA, Philippines – The El Niño phenomenon that dried up farmlands in most parts of Luzon has finally ended, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) announced yesterday.

The weather bureau, however, warned that the dry spell is likely to be followed by La Niña, a weather phenomenon that brings excessive rainfall, during the second half of 2010.

“The El Niño event that prevailed over the equatorial Pacific since June 2009 has ended,” Pagasa administrator Prisco Nilo said in a statement.

Nilo said the sea surface temperatures throughout the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean have gradually cooled during May, resulting in neutral conditions.

The rainy season, associated with the southwest monsoon, is expected to begin in the middle of June.

“Rainfall conditions will likely be near normal in most parts of the country, with some areas in Visayas and Mindanao that may receive below normal rainfall,” Nilo said. The weather bureau in Baguio City said the end of the dry spell would give relief to highland agriculture, which had been adversely affected by the drought in the previous months.

For more than a week now, Baguio City and the rest of Benguet province have been experiencing intermittent rains. Highland agriculture relies heavily on natural rainfall rather than irrigation systems provided by the government.

Pagasa has monitored a low-pressure area west of Northern Luzon that is expected to bring rains over Luzon and Visayas in the next three to four days. It is, however, unlikely to become a tropical storm.

The low-pressure area was spotted some 600 kilometers west of Northern Luzon as of 2 a.m. yesterday.

Rene Paciente, Pagasa weather forecaster, clarified that summer has not yet ended because the volume of rainfall in the last two days is not enough to declare that the rainy season has arrived.

The volume of rainfall should not be less than one millimeter for three consecutive days for the beginning of the rainy season to be declared.

He said they are monitoring the amount of rainfall in eight weather stations: in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte; Vigan, Ilocos Sur; Dagupan City, Pangasinan; Iba, Zambales; San Jose, Mindoro; Metro Manila; Ambulong Island in Mindoro and Iloilo province.

Luzon and Visayas would experience cloudy skies with scattered rain showers and thunderstorms.

Mindanao, on the other hand, would have partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated rain showers or thunderstorms mostly in the afternoon or evening.                                          To prepare for the onset of the rainy season, Pagasa and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) are implementing a $3-million flood forecasting project this month to help address the perennial problem of flooding in Metro Manila.

Nilo said the project includes the installation of automatic weather stations, rainfall gauging stations, and water level gauging stations in selected flood-prone areas in Metro Manila and Rizal province.

“This project will greatly enhance the flood forecasting capability of Pagasa in Metro Manila and its nearby areas,” Nilo said.

He said agencies involved in disaster management, as well as local government units, will be provided real-time rainfall data to be used as reference for issuing flood and landslide warnings.

Last year, tropical cyclones “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” caused massive flooding in Metro Manila and provinces in Luzon, killing nearly a thousand of people and damaging billions in agricultural assets. –Helen Flores (The Philippine Star) with Artemio Dumlao