Meteorological Conditions in South East Asia

23 August 1999


The Meteorological Service of Singapore reports on 22 August 1999 for the South East Asian region: "Cloudy over northern and central Sumatra. Few hot spots were observed in southern Sumatra and many in western and southern Kalimantan".

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Fig.1. Regional Surface Winds and Haze/Hot Spot Map, 22 August 1999
(Source: http://www.gov.sg/metsin/hazed.html)
Forecasts of winds and surface pressure are available at http://www.gov.sg/metsin/flm.html

A special site dedicated to haze/smoke, entitled with the same name HAZE, gives further information to the current haze situation over South East Asia and SEAsia haze related sites.

 

The GFMC displays selected and daily updated global and Asia-Pacific Experimental Climate Prediction Center (ECPC)  Fire Weather Forecasts (Fig.2-7). These examples allow a quicklook and provide daily and weekly total forecasts, and forecasted monthly anomalies (for this month). For background information refer to the ECPC products description page.

maps for Western-Pacific
lately not available
maps for Western-Pacific
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maps for Western-Pacific
lately not available
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tomorrow next week next month

Fig.2-7. Fire Weather Index (FWI) forecast for tomorrow (left), next week (center) and the predicted FWI anomaly for next month (right) for the Western Pacific and the Pacific Ocean. The daily forecast refers to 12:00 hrs noon UTC (Greenwich) time; the weekly total forecast and the monthly forecasted anomaly refer to 00:00 hrs UTC which is local noon at dateline (180° longitude). Forecast time is 12:00 hrs noon UTC (Greenwich) corresponding to local evening time in mainland and insular SE Asia (updated: 23 August 1999).
(Source: http://meteora.ucsd.edu/ecpc/)

 

The ASEAN Haze Action Online provides the following information:

 

The latest NOAA14 satellite image shows hot spot locations in Sumatra and Kalimantan. "Hot spots" can be identified as red dots.

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Fig.8. Latest NOAA Satellite image of Sumatra and Kalimantan, 22 August 1999
(Source: http://www.gov.sg/metsin/hazed.html)

The Indonesian Meteorological Agency Badan Meteorologi dan Geofisika publishs the Indonesia Daily Forecasting for 24 August 1999. For the representative selected areas metereological data are provided as follows:

Palembang Samarinda Ujung Pandang Dili Bandung
Weather condition rain rain cloudy clear rain
Temperature (min-max °C) 22-31°C 22-30°C 23-33°C 21-30°C 17-28°C
Humidity (min-max %) 55-95 65-98 45-93 45-85 45-85

The Forest Fire Prevention and Control Project (FFPCP) in Palembang (Sumatra) provides a fire overview map on 20 August 1999.

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Fig.9. Fire Overview Map for 20 August 1999 of the FFPCP project in Palembang.
(source: http://www.mdp.co.id/ffpcp/overview.htm)

The latest fire overview map for the Integrated Forest Fire Management (IFFM) project in Kalimantan shows significant fire events on the 17 August 1999.

Summary: Although the current fire weather conditions do under normal conditions not favour extensive land clearing by fire or escaping wildfires in Indonesia, the consequences of the large wildfires of 1997-98 must been taken into consideration. These fires had caused extensive degradation of primary and secondary forests along with the spreading of "alang-alang" (Imperata cylindrica) grasslands. These grasslands facilitate the spread of uncontrolled fires over large areas.

See also the IFFN Country Notes.


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