GEORGE TOWN: Be prepared for the El Nino (Spanish for The Boy) weather pattern although it’s not expected to arrive so soon, say experts.
Assoc Prof Dr Yusri Yusup, an atmospheric physicist at Universiti Sains Malaysia, expects the weather phenomenon La Nina (Spanish for Little Sister) to end after four to six months of “neutral” weather.
“Then El Nino, the weather pattern that tends to bring frustratingly hot and dry days, is expected to start.
“Normally, La Nina and El Nino events follow each other. But the recent La Nina was very different.
“It was mild. There is less rain than expected but it was prolonged and brought generally cool days all year round for a few years,” he said.
Assoc Prof Yusri, who has many gauges and sensors planted at the coastline of Teluk Bahang in the northwestern tip of Penang island, noted that sea temperatures had cooled down markedly of late, a downward trend that began three years ago.
“Based on climate models, we expect the hot and dry El Nino to come but not at once. I foresee that it will occur in the latter half of the year.
“I expect it to be mild, not so hot, but it will last long, just like the mild La Nina of the past few years,” he said.
He said while climate modelling would lose accuracy after three months, the patterns were studiedly regularly in the region and the modelling was regularly updated, leading most experts in South-East Asia and Australia to predict that El Nino will kick in later this year.
El Nino and La Nina are weather phenomena dictated by the flow of warm and cool oceanic currents circulating the planet.
The cycles of warm and cold sea surface temperatures in turn affect low and high atmospheric pressures on a global scale.
Both these cycles are believed to have gone on for thousands of years and they affect regions differently, bringing severe droughts to one side of the globe and horrendous floods to the other side at the same time.
