Highlights

Rainfall Prediction: Fairly heavy rainfall is predicted for the entire island during 22nd – 26th Oct. Greater likelihood of dry tendency is predicted for southern Sri Lanka from Oct to Dec.

Monitored Rainfalls: Fairly heavy rainfall was observed in the Central and Uva provinces with max of 77.3 mm in Nuwara Eliya district on 11th Oct according to ground observations.

Monitored  Wind: From 12th Oct – 19th Oct, up to 25 km/h Westerlies to Southwesterlies were experienced across the island.

Monitored  Sea Surface: Sea surface temperature was observed to be neutral all around Sri Lanka.

Interpretation

Monitoring

Rainfall:  During the last two weeks, there had been fairly heavy rainfall over the following provinces: Central and Uva.

Wind: Westerly to South westerly winds prevailed in the sea area and around the island during last week.

Temperatures: The temperature anomalies were above normal by 10C – 30C in the Sabaragamuwa, Southern, Uva and Western provinces while near-neutral for the rest of the country last week, driven by the warm SST’s.

Prediction

Rainfall: During the next week (22nd- 26th October) fairly heavy rainfall is predicted for the entire island.

Temperatures: The temperature remains slightly normal during 22nd – 30th October for the whole country.

Teleconnections: La Nina -The SST forecast indicates that ENSO-neutral are present and a transition from ENSO-neutral to La Niña is favored in the next couple of months. MJO shall be neutral during 20th – 24th Oct and slightly suppressed rainfall during 25th Oct – 3rd Nov.

Seasonal Precipitation:

October to December is the main rainfall season in Sri Lanka. The consensus predictions has switched from neutral to favoring a dry tendency. A dry tendency can hurt agricultural production and it adds to farmer difficulties due to the fertilizer bans.However, since this is the wet season the impact will not be as severe.
However, the bigger impact shall be that it shall reduce the generated hydropower in the coming months. This can hurt the economy due to the scarcity in Foreign Exchange within the country due to the Central Bank regulations.

Understanding the Forecast