22 August 2023 12:00 am Views - 144
By Yohan Perera
The present dry spell which is expected to last for some time will be followed by unusually high rainfall in November because of extreme weather events, a spokesman from the Department of Meteorology said yesterday.
“There is a risk of floods in Sri Lanka as it is anticipated that rainfall may be higher than usual because of EL Nino and Indian Ocean Dipole situation,” he said.
“We will be able to access the situation only in October and forecast accurately but at the moment we can say that Sri Lanka is running a risk of floods by November,” he added.
Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is an ocean-atmosphere interaction very similar to the El Nino fluctuations in the Pacific Ocean, playing out, as the name shows, in the Indian Ocean. It is also a much weaker system than El Nino, and thus has relatively limited impacts. However, a positive IOD does have the potential to offset the impacts of El Nino to a small measure in neighbouring areas, and it has, at least once in the past (1997), delivered admirably on this potential.
Meanwhile, some 210,790 people belonging to 60,996 families in 15 districts including Matale, Gampaha, Ampara, Kandy, Puttalam, Mannar, Batticaloa, Vavuniya, Jaffna,. Hambantota, Monaragala, Badulla, Mullaitivu, Kurunegala, Trincomalee and Ratnapura are facing a drinking water issue as a result of the dry spell.