Is Maldives seeing increased rainfall?
MET statistics show that daily precipitation rates have increased.
By
Aminath Shifleen
The most rainfall this year was recorded on 31 July, in R. Alifushi with a record of 158.7 mm of rainfall. The second most was Gdh. Kaadedhdhoo on 3 August.
These records show a more than average amount of rainfall in the Maldives weather history, so the question rises; has rainfall increased in the Maldives recently?
The statistics shared with Dhauru by the MET office does not show a significant increase as the records dating 12 years back show varied amounts of rainfall by year.
12-year period weather records depict:
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2016 experienced the most rainfall, with 2,204 mm rainfall recorded year-round.
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2019 experienced the second most rainfall, with 2,183 mm rainfall recorded in the year.
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On average, the most rainfall is recorded in the months of May and October.
The MET statistics do not show any patterns in the rainfall amounts across the years; three consecutive years can have high rainfall amounts, but the next year may experience very little rainfall. There is no data that depicts an unusual increase in rainfall.
Then what has changed?
A lot of people feel that the weather in Maldives has changed over the years, with the most common opinion being that the weather in Maldives has become unpredictable.
For ages, Maldivians have followed India's ancient monsoon calendars, which basically describe the Hulhangu (south-west) monsoon as ‘stormy’ and the Iruvai (north-east) monsoon as ’sunny’.
Maldives has moderate weather year-round, raining and sunny alternately every month. Visible seasonal changes occur usually in the beginning of the month of May, when the ‘Kethi Nakaiy’ (the third nakaiy of southwest monsoon) changes wind direction and turns the sunny side of life gloomy and charged with stormy static in the air. Winds pick up, and make the sea foamy.
The longer monsoon among the two, south-west winds commonly blow through the year until December. Assumedly, the sunny weather will slide in right away, but this water nation experiences a weather condition known locally as Iruvai Halha (north-easterly gusts) during the transition of the two monsoons. These turbulent seasonal transitions occupy all of November and December, lasting until the beginning of January the next year.
Local fishermen have always been able to rely on the weather prediction in the traditional Nakaiy calendar, but they claim to find that the weather has become unpredictable now.
The MET office notes the increase in the amount of perpetual rainfall of late, with non-stop rain for two days at a time in one month.
Ahmed Rasheed, a director of meteorology at the MET’s Public Weather Service department told Dhauru that even though weather data shows varied amounts of annual rainfall, we are observing an unusual increase in the amount of perpetual rainfall on the days that it does rain. He also noted how long periods of non-stop rainfall can badly affect a low-lying country such as the Maldives.
“Continued perpetual rainfall like this can cause flooding and damages of all kinds on land”, Rasheed had said.
The most rainfall recorded in Male City of late was on 5 December 2018.
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223.5 mm of rainfall was recorded that day, and the government declared the torrential rain an emergency situation.
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Rainfall has never before reached 100 mm per day in Male’ City statistics, and the second most rainfall in Male’ City was recorded back in 1998.
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The most rainfall recorded in a day on any other island was at Gan, Addu, with rainfall of 228.4 mm, the second most being Laamu atoll, with rainfall recorded above 200 mm, damaging island infrastructure.
The MET office does not have concrete data that can explain these weather changes. However, we can safely assume that these are direct effects of global climate change. There is enough research that can prove that low-lying islands like the Maldives will be the first to experience the effects of global warming.
