Experimental Climate Monitoring and Prediction for Maldives – April 2014

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Highlights

Seas immediately around Maldives do not show a surface temperature anomaly more than 0.5oC from the seasonal average. While the Rainfall during March over the Northern islands is the highest in the last five last five years, there has been an overall drought when the last six months are considered. Such a drought pattern prevailed in the 6 month period of over the Central islands as well. However, the southern Islands continued to have a wetter than average rainfall over the last season. The predictions from weekly to seasonal scales do not show much departures from climatology.  

Image: Rainfall Anomaly in March 2014. Green areas show above average rainfall and brown areas show below average rainfall. Higher magnitudes are shown in darker shades.

Summary

CLIMATOLOGY

Monthly Climatology: 

The average rainfall for the Southern islands is high in March and April and the average declines as one travels north. The winds are usually north-easterly (from North-East to South-West) for March but changes to Westerly by April. Regional Details by month are provided in section 1.

MONITORING

Weekly Monitoring: 

No rain was observed during 29th March to 3rd April 2013.

Monthly and Seasonal Monitoring:

During March up to 60 mm rainfall was observed in northern islands. Compared to previous five years this amount is the highest observed rainfall in this month. Around 20 mm of rainfall was observed in Central islands during March. But the rainfall deficit is still evident in both Northern and Central islands. In Southern islands rainfall shows an increasing trend so far this year.

PREDICTIONS

Weekly Rainfall Forecast: 

During 6th to 11th April 2014, Northern and Central islands shall receive up to 20 mm of rainfall while no rainfall is expected in Southern islands during this period.

Seasonal Rainfall and Temperature Prediction: 

As per IRI Multi Model Probability Forecast for April to June 2014, rainfall shall remain climatological while temperature this season shall have a 40- 45% probability of being in the above normal tercile in the Southern Islands and climatological in the Central Islands.

Pacific Seas State March 20, 2014

During February through mid-March the observed ENSO conditions varied from cool-neutral to the borderline of weak La Niña. However, many of the ENSO prediction models indicate a warming trend, with neutral ENSO during northern spring 2014 and a fairly likely development of weak El Niño conditions by the end of northern summer.

(Text Courtesy IRI)

Indian Ocean State March 29, 2014

Neutral SST conditions are observed around Maldives. The Southern tropical Indian Ocean has a warm anomaly of greater than 0.5oC from the seasonal average.

Inside this Issue

1.       Monthly Climatology

2.       Rainfall Monitoring

a.       Daily Satellite derived Rainfall Estimates

b.      Monthly Rainfall derived from Satellite Rainfall Estimate

c.       Monthly and Seasonal Monitoring

d.      Weekly Average SST Anomalies

3.       Rainfall Predictions

a.       Weekly Predictions from NOAA/NCEP

b.      Seasonal Predictions from IRI

More...

FECT BLOG Sri Lanka

http://fectsl.blogspot.com/

FECT WEBSITE

http://www.climate.lk

and

FECT MALDIVES WEBSITE

http://www.tropicalclimate.org/maldives