Friday 26 / April / 2024
Muscat: After a wet April, Oman has to brace for a hotter summer starting from May, global meteorologists say.
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“More prolonged heat and dryness is likely, starting in late April. Compared to previous years, May will be hotter,” Jason Nicholls, a senior meteorologist at Accuweather.com, said.
“We can see dry and warm to hot weather coming to Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as early as late April, with most indications being for a warmer-than-normal and likely drier-than-normal May,” the meteorologist said, adding that despite a rainy March, temperatures for the month had averaged 1.1 degrees Celsius above normal in Oman.
On Sunday, Oman’s Meteorological Department (Met) predicted heavy rain in the northern parts of Oman from Tuesday till Thursday, due to a deep upper air trough.
Read also: Heavy rain likely in many parts of Sultanate
Heavy rain fell in different parts of Oman during the first and second week of March, resulting in overflowing wadis (valleys) and dams. The heavy March rains have claimed eight lives in Oman so far.
According to Jason despite frequent rain falls, 2016 is unlikely to be the wettest year on record since January and February were much drier than normal with no rain recorded in January.
“March has been much wetter than normal across northern Oman and UAE, but the rest of Oman has seen little or no rain. In fact, around Muscat, the month to date for rainfall is only 90 per cent of normal so actually slightly below normal,” Jason added.
Meanwhile, Saeed Al Sarmi, the head of the Research Centre from Public Authority for Civil Aviation (PACA) told the Times of Oman, that if it rains in April, summer may be delayed in Oman.
“However, at this moment we will not be able to predict whether May will be hotter when compared to previous years,” Al Sarmi said.
A data released by NASA this month also has confirmed that February 2016 was not only the warmest month ever measured globally, at 1.35 degrees Celsius above the long-term average—it was more than 0.2 degrees Celsius warmer than the previously most unusually warm month ever measured: January 2016.
The new NASA data confirms unofficial data released earlier this month showing a dramatic and ongoing surge in the planet's temperature.
World Meteorological Organisation has also said that 2016 could be hotter due to the El Niño weather pattern, warning inaction on climate change could see temperatures rise by 6 degrees Celsius or more.
"Whilst a strong El Niño event is currently in progress, the impact of El Niño (and La Niña) on global annual mean temperatures is typically strongest in the second calendar year of the event," the WMO report says "and hence the year whose annual mean temperature is likely to be most strongly influenced by the current El Niño is 2016 rather than 2015."
