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http://fijitimes.com.fj/story.aspx?id=155375
Disaster team to make drought call
Reijeli Kikau
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
An Official declaration on a state of drought will not come from the weather office but
from the National Disaster Management director Pajiliai Dobui.
This was revealed by the manager of the Fiji Meteorological Service climate special
services and research division, Doctor Sushil Sharma.
Dr Sharma said the procedure was that they had relayed their advice by fax, email and
personally to Mr Dobui, and it was his prerogative to officially declare a state of drought
after scrutinising the facts and figures provided.
"It is possible the NDMO may decide to have a meeting with the Fiji Meteorology
Service. On behalf of the acting Director of Meteorology, the Climate Services Division
has (yesterday) completed its scrutiny of all data for the past 16 months relating to the
three seasons of back to back dry conditions over Fiji," he said.
He said yesterday's final analysis showed the weather office that Fiji was definitely in a
hydrological drought situation with conditions to worsen over the next two to three
months.
Dr Sharma said with two to three months of the dry season left, the water deficit situation
and present regional and global indices of weather and climate systems, the drought could
be as bad as or worse than the one in 1998.
"Please note that Fiji is facing almost three dry seasons back-to-back from May 2009 and
the situation remains very critical all over Fiji, and the water tables, rivers, lakes, water
holes and streams are in a much stressed situation. We do not anticipate any relief in sight
for the next 2-3 months when the country will pass through the most trying times," he
said.
"The Fiji Meteorological Service expects a normal wet season with average to above
average rainfall starting from the beginning of December 2010, when the drought should
start to gradually break with considerable rain expected over the coming wet season."
Dr Sharma said looking at all the figures it had been established that rains of as much as
600-1000 mm would be needed to alleviate the present dry conditions.
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He said their study showed that all 25 monitoring stations over Fiji had since May 2009
had below to below-average rainfall. While there has been some rain in the Central
Division over the past three days it has not been enough to break the drought.
At a glance:
THESE figures were gathered from rain monitoring sites across the country beginning in
May 2009 and show the below-average rainfall trend.
* All 25 monitoring stations in Fiji had below average rainfall over the 16-month period.
* Western Division - 26 to 40 per cent below average rainfall
* Central Division - 14 to 28 per cent below average rainfall.
* Eastern Division - 10 to 23 per cent below average rainfall.
* Northern Division - 6 to 46 per cent below average rainfall.