BMG Warning of Extreme Weather: Indonesia

I have never particularly worried about the weather wherever I travel and mainly because it more often than not does not affect my endeavours. If it rains then I sit and chat with the locals, but if the sun is shining then I am out there tripping around.

The BMG of Indonesia or Geophysics and Meteorology Agency has come up with some dire stuff for the archipelago. Trust the weatherman to drop a clanger!. Besides, they never get it right most of the time but, with the BMG they are usually spot on in Indonesia unlike in other countries.

They have warned that forecasted heavy rainfall later next week could trigger flooding and landslides in certain parts of the country. Seasonal reversals of wind direction would also result in droughts in some other parts of the country.

Okay, so I stay away from trees, rivers and lakes!. Trouble is that in Indonesia, when it rains then it absolutely pisses down!. If the BMG says precipitation will be heavy then look forward to a torrential downpour. And, the agency has predicted just that. They said heavy precipitation was likely from Friday to Thursday in northern parts of Sumatra, East and West Kalimantan, in northern Sulawesi and Maluku and in northern and central Papua.

The agency says that low precipitation could cause severe droughts in the southern part of Sumatra, Java, Bali, and the southern part of Borneo and Sulawesi islands during the next week. The BMG then went on to say that there is nothing unusual about this situation. It has to do with the nation's geographical location in between two oceans and two continents that differently affect the weather in the northern and southern parts of Indonesia.

Heavy rainfall is not necessarily linked to floods and landslides but they will happen should the environmental condition of a region be degraded the BMG was quoted as saying, and continued that regional administrations in the affected areas should use these projections to carry out disaster assessments and prepare for worst-case scenarios.

Interestingly, different climates were caused by the varying topographical conditions of the country's islands which resulted in different evaporation processes in each region, and, the parts of the country facing severe droughts were categorized as a "monsoon climatic" islands, which would be at their driest from June to August. Regions with projected heavy rainfalls were islands of "local climatic" type and rainfall could continue there until August

Other regions like northern Borneo, Central and Southeast Sulawesi, the northern part of North Sulawesi and most parts of Papua are categorized as equatorial climatic types, and rainfall would continue there intermittently throughout the year.

So there you have it. Enjoy your hols in the archipelago of paradise!.