Mr. Mai Van Khiem, Director of the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, said that the El Nino phenomenon may appear in the second half of summer 2023 and last until 2024 with a probability of about 70 - 80%.
According to Mr. Khiem, under El Nino conditions, in most regions of the country, the average monthly temperature tends to be higher than normal, heat waves may be more frequent and more severe, and there is a possibility of many records for absolute maximum temperatures. Storm and tropical depression activities may not be as numerous but will be concentrated in the middle of the season, with more unusual characteristics, both in intensity and trajectory.
Under El Nino conditions, in most regions of the country, heat waves may be more frequent and more intense. (Illustration: Dac Huy).
"It is worth noting that El Nino often causes rainfall deficits in most areas of the country, with a common level of 25 to 50%, so there is a high risk of local or widespread drought in areas with high water demand for production and daily life, during the dry months of 2023.
"We need to guard against low rainfall leading to drought, saltwater intrusion, and water shortages in the first months of 2024 nationwide. The most obvious example of the impact of El Nino was causing record droughts and saltwater intrusions in 2015-2016 and 2019-2020," said Mr. Khiem.
According to Mr. Khiem, under El Nino conditions, rainfall tends to decrease but there may be records for the heaviest rainfall in 24 hours. For example, in 2015, there was El Nino but in Quang Ninh, there was historic heavy rain at the end of July.
In the year of El Nino 2002, heavy rains still appeared and caused major floods in many areas. Specifically, major floods above alert level 3 occurred in July and early August on the Red River in Thai Binh ; major floods in the Central region occurred in late September, including historic floods in the upper reaches of the Ca River (Ha Tinh); and major floods occurred in the Mekong Delta in the South.
In 2009, storm No. 9 (Ketsana) entered the provinces of Quang Nam - Quang Ngai, causing a major flood, a historic flood at the end of September. The flood peak in 2009, on the main rivers from Quang Binh to Phu Yen all exceeded alert level 3, causing serious flooding from Quang Binh to Khanh Hoa and Kon Tum.
The prolonged drought in Nghe An in 2020 caused cracked fields and exposed lakes and rivers. (Photo: Tran Loc).
To cope with the impact of El Nino, Mr. Khiem said, the General Department of Hydrometeorology has sent a dispatch to the National Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control warning about the impact of El Nino, informing ministries, branches and localities to have response plans. The immediate and long-term tasks for ministries, branches and localities have been requested by the Prime Minister in a recent dispatch.
"With the high possibility of El Nino, we need to review and assess the demand for water for production and daily life to adjust plans accordingly, especially for the summer-autumn crop in the North Central and Central regions, or areas with large tourism development activities in the dry months of 2023. Reservoirs also need to consider adjusting their operation and production plans to cope with the risk of rainfall deficit under El Nino conditions.
Besides coping with water shortages and droughts in El Nino conditions, we must not lose our vigilance against the possibility of unusual floods and rains as happened in previous El Nino years," Mr. Khiem emphasized.
El Nino is the term used to describe the phenomenon of abnormal warming of the surface ocean water in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, lasting 8-12 months or longer, usually occurring every 3-4 years, but sometimes more or less frequent.
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