Report: Dry spells forecast for islands

 By ALISON ANIS

A PACIFIC drought watch team says the current seasonal outlook for the next two months does not appear to favour  regions situated along the NGI as far as sourcing drinking water from rain through rain water tanks is concerned.

Seasonal outlook for Pacific islands countries (SCOPIC) team, when giving the rainfall situation for Papua New Guinea, said after a dry September nearly all the centres were beginning to receive their wet season rainfall except for Tokua in East New Britain, Kavieng, New Ireland and Momote in Manus.

The El Nino seasonal outlook (ENSO) update from the National Weather Service with the Department of Transport said the water supply in tanks were likely to run dry if drought conditions experienced last October for three provinces continued through to next month.

“Wewak in East Sepik and West Sepik’s Vanimo are also facing the same problem and this is really unusual especially when the country is in a La Nina situation whereby the country should be experiencing wetter than normal conditions with serious following in worst affected areas such as Highlands,” the report said.