Rainfall

Based on model assessments for July 2018, the rainfall over equatorial Southeast Asia, including parts of Borneo and the Indonesian provinces of Sulawesi and Papua has been projected to be below-average. The models used in the assessment are those of NCEP CFSv2 (Figure 1), ECMWF (Figure 2) and UK Met Office (Figure 3), which have considerably good skill for the Southeast Asia region (Figure 4 and 5).

From the NCEP CFSv2 model, rainfall over the region comprising the Philippine Sea, the Bay of Bengal and parts of the South China Sea Asia around 10˚N is predicted to be above-average. While the NCEP CFSv2 model’s skill is generally low for these regions (Figure 4 and Figure 5), compared to the other two models (ECMWF and UK Met Office), only areas over the central part of the Philippines are consistent in all three models.

For the rest of the Southeast Asia region, the model skill is either low, or there is no dominant tercile from the three models.

Figure 1: Rainfall anomaly of NCEP model for July 2018.