‘Brunt of El Niño now upon us’

The full brunt of a monster El Niño is now upon us, according to the weather bureau.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) has warned that the prevailing strong El Niño will still worsen to such an extent that much of the country now faces drought conditions for the next eight months or until next May next year.

Apart from way-below-normal rainfall, warmer-than-normal air temperatures will also be felt in the coming months which are usually the coldest for the year.

Pagasa said its weather stations are now recording above-normal air temperatures.

“(El Niño) is going to stay with us up to July 2016. We are 100 percent sure it will stay through March next year, so we have to prepare,” Anthony Lucero, Pagasa climatology division officer in charge, told a news conference on Wednesday.

El Niño is the abnormal warming of the sea surface temperature in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean which causes extreme weather globally, and in particular drought conditions in the Philippines.

The weather anomaly, which started as a moderate El Niño in October 2014, looks likely to surpass in intensity the 1997-1998 El Niño episode, the strongest on record until now, according to Pagasa.

Ausralian climate experts said the prevailing El Niño continues to show indications of persisting in strength into the early part of 2016 as ocean and atmospheric conditions reinforce each other.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said in its latest fortnightly update that sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean were observed to have been more than 2°C above average during the past two weeks.

Temperatures exceed “El Niño thresholds by well over 1°C, and at levels not seen since the 1997–1998” occurrence of the phenomenon,” the BoM said.

“Most international climate models surveyed (by the BoM) indicate El Niño is likely to peak towards the end of 2015,” the agency said.

It said the El Niño is typically at its strongest during the latter months of a calendar year, weakening in the early months of the following year.

Earlier this month, the BoM said persistently weak or reversed trade winds, in conjunction with the ongoing warming in the tropical Pacific Ocean, indicate that the El Niño is unlikely to start weakening before early 2016.

Meanwhile, an inter-agency El Niño Task Force has drawn intervention plans to mitigate the adverse impact of the weather phenomenon on various fronts.

An official of the National Economic Development Authority, which heads the task force, said they are trying to avert an increase in food prices, especially during the holiday season.

“For sure it’s going to be agriculture that will be hit most and food production will be affected, particularly rice,” said Mercedita

Sombilla, the Neda national resources staff director.

Sombilla said 32,000 hectares of irrigated lands have not been cultivated so rice production will be lower than expected “and we expect worse because El Niño will hit during the planting season for the wet season.”

“We are worried about the increase in rice prices because this affects other prices, especially because of the holiday season,” Sombilla said, adding that the Department of Agriculture will import rice to avert price increases.

According to Pagasa, large parts of the country have been experiencing dry conditions since March, to such an extent that many provinces, especially in Mindanao, have declared themselves as calamity areas.

“In July we we were lucky that even if we are in drought we still [experienced] rain,” Lucero said.