Many thanks to the several contributors to this issue. New contributions are welcome. Please send in yours by September, 2003 to make it to the next issue of this newsletter. Please note the change in email address from slmon_news@hotmail.com to slmohn@sltnet.lk

Lareef Zubair, Editor.

written by Lareef Zubair based on conversation with Dr. S.C. Kar of the NCMRWF on June 9, 2003 at Palisades, New York and correspondance with Dr. S.V. Singh and Dr.E. Rajagopal by email.

For the last four months, the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) has been producing maps of rainfall and wind fields at a lead time of 1-3 days for Sri Lanka. The NCMRWF is the Indian Government Agency that issues predictions of weather from a range of seven days up to a month or perhaps a season.

It was initiated as an entity separate but interlinked with the Indian Meteorological Department in 1988 so as to promote both within the Department and outside India and Internationally. It has now expanded and shall be moving into a new building in New Delhi. It has the most powerful scientific computing resources in India including a CRAY SV1, a Supercomputer indigenously developed from DEC Alpha processors and the fully indigenous PARAM supercomputer that was developed when India was denied CRAY computers from the US. Its predictions are based on real-time weather information that is available from the Global Telecommunication System (GTS) of the WMO and additional information from meteorological stations within India that are not included in the GTS system. All of this data is assimilated with two Global Forecast Models – one, a derivative from the National Centre for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) - the weather prediction centre of the US and another, which was indigenously generated.

An integral part of its operations is the development of high-resolution regional climate models - it has implemented 3 types of regional models in the Indian region including the MM5, the NCEP Eta Model and the RSM. For Sri Lanka, a higher resolution version is being developed at a horizontal resolution for 32 km and with 38 vertical layers. These results are available from the NCMRWF to all. The work is being overseen by Dr. E.N. Rajagopal. This work was initiated as assistance from Indian under the BIMST-EC (Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand -Economic Cooperation) program. There has been an exchange of visits by a delegation from the Sri Lankan Department of Meteorology to NCMRWF in March 2003 to New Delhi and in addition, the Director of NCMRWF visited the Colombo office of the Sri Lankan Meteorological Department. An examination of the NCMRWF forecast archives for the period of the May 2003 cyclone shows that the NCMRWF model was able to provide forewarning of the intense winds and the orographic precipitation in South-Western Sri Lanka.

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M.Sc Course In Atmospheric Physics and Dynamical Meteorology at the University of Colombo reported by Dr. Chandana Jayaratne

The course coordinator Dr Chandana Jayaratne reports that the second course on MSc in Atmospheric Physics and Dynamical Meteorology of the Department of Physics, University of Colombo was commneced on 4th July 2003. The lecturers for this course have been drawn from the University of Colombo, Open University and the Department of Meteorology. In addition, various visiting lecturers have been tapped The course is partially funded by the ADB Personnel Development Project of the Ministry of Human Resourse, Science and Technology. Due to the heavy demand, 25 graduate students have been enrolled for the second course and 14 of them will receive a partial scolarship from the ADB. There were 18 graduate students in the first enrollment. The course comprises 18 months of lectures followed by six months of full-time research.

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Three semesters of lectures have been completed for the M.Sc course on Oceanography at the Post-Graduate Institute of Science at the University of Peradeniya. The lectures were conducted with the assistance of lecturers from the University of Peradeniya, National Acquatic Resources Agency and Dr. Sarupria from the University of Mangalore in India. The students will be undertaking six months of research.

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The International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) issues monthly summaries about the current state of ENSO, and the consensus of models that forecast ENSO developments for the coming 6 or more months. 

ENSO conditions are currently near-neutral. Ocean temperatures in the far eastern equatorial Pacific are below average, while temperatures in the east-central and central Pacific are neutral to above average. The latest observations and forecasts no longer indicate a significant preference for development of La Niña conditions over the next few months. A continuation of neutral conditions appears most likely through the remainder of 2003.

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It is now clear that the Indian Ocean Dipole event has evolved in the tropical Indian Ocean; recent definite events were in 1994 and 1997. We have been cautious this time not to release a false alarm. Now we are sure that it is not an ISO event but IOD. We invite you to visit our webpage to see our discussions during the tracking of the event.
http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d1/iod/

According to our perusal of the reanalysis data sets form ECMWF and NCEP-NCAR including the ECMWF Ocean Analysis, the winds are consistently westward from the eastern to central tropical Indian Ocean. Also, the SST anomalies near the Java and Sumatra coasts are colder by 2/3 deg. centigrade. The central and western parts of the basin are warming up now. We also observe a consistent dipole pattern in the OLR anomalies; eastern part rains being suppressed. Those are typical evidences of the IOD event during this time of the year.

The teleconnection pattern exactly fits the current world unusual conditions (extremely hot southern Europe, southern China; flood in northern India and Bangladesh; dry western Australia, etc.). We are afraid that tropical eastern Africa will suffer from flooding this fall. It is extremely hot over East Asia (Shanghai, Okinawa etc.) owing to

expected strengthening of the Bonin High based on our recent analysis. Interestingly, there is still no summer in the northern part of Japan because of the strong Okhotsk High activity due to the last cold winter (and the resulting cold SST).The mass media in Japan are anxiously following our updates and discussing the scientific issues with us. We welcome your discussion on this Indian Ocean climate event and related unusual conditions in the world.

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The momentum in the eastern Pacific to a La Niña has stalled and indeed even regressed to neutral El Niño-Southern Oscillation characteristics. However, there still remain La Niña type warm anomalies especially in the equatorial western Pacific Ocean. The Arabian Sea particularly towards the equator remains unseasonably warmer along with the Red Seas and the Mediterranean seas. These sea surface patterns were influential in the pattern of increased rainfall in the Central Asian regions, in the Western Indian Ocean and in South-Eastern China and rainfall deficits in the Indian subcontinent and the Indonesian archipelago. The preponderantly warm seas also contributed to the occasional heat waves in the Indian subcontinent that caused several deaths.

The flooding in South-East China affected 100 million people and led to 589 deaths and economic losses estimated at $5 billion. In the Central Asian region of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the increased snow melt and enhanced rainfall led to flooding, landslides and damage to fruit cultivation. Drought prevailed in Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Indian states including Rajasthan and Karnataka leading to crop and livestock losses and outbreaks of disease such as Monkey fever.

In Sri Lanka the overall tendency was towards drier than normal conditions, however, a severe but localized flood led to a death toll of 260 and affected 250,000 persons. The flood was caused by orographic rainfall due to intense winds caused by a cyclone that tracked its way 700 km to the east in the Bay of Bengal. This episode of a flood amidst a drought seems paradoxical at first. It illustrates the nuances in spatial and temporal scale in the relationship of weather events to seasonal climatic anomalies that can befuddle users of climate information.

The predictions for the remainder of summer monsoon in the Indian subcontinent are for a slightly wetter tendency. Following the record deficit rainfall last summer in India, this shall be welcome. On the other hand, Indonesia shows strong dry tendency for Sumatra and a wet tendency for the islands in the West of the archipelago particularly in Borneo, Irian Jaya and Papua New Guinea. The predictions for the upcoming season generally show a warm tendency except for slight cooling in the Indonesian islands. One must take some caution with these predictions since the Indian Ocean sea surface predictions (that are used as boundary conditions for global climate models) are not as skillful as that for the Pacific Ocean.

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Notwithstanding the heavy flooding in the South-West corner of Sri Lanka (including parts of Sabragamuwa and the Southern Province), the overall tendency during the last season has been to drier than normal conditions. The predictions from IRI for the coming season (October to December, 2003) point to a slightly wetter tendency.

The IRI assessments of precipitation from October to December for Sri Lankan region shows a tendency towards slightly wetter conditions from normal in the period from October to December. These predictions are based on poorly estimated Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures. It is reported by Frontier Research Centre for Global Change that the Indian Ocean Dipole mode is under development. If this dipole mode persists through the end of the year, then this is known to cause a wetter tendency for the Sri Lankan region. The IRI temperature predictions show a slight tendency to cooler conditions from October to December. Attention is thus warranted on the developing conditions in the next months before the next Maha (Rabi in India) season.

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Editors Note: K.R.Abhayasingha, Deputy Director, Department of Meteorology, Colombo, Sri Lanka has edited a book on lightning hazards and is seeking to have it published. He has already published two books: one on Static Electricity, Lightning and Thunder and the other on Weather in Sri Lanka to his credit. You can contact Mr. Abhayasingha at krabey@yahoo.com with your suggestions.

At present, reading materials on lightning in the local language (Sinhala) is sparse. Hence I have edited a book to convey the public the necessary information of lightning and precautionary measures, practical inexpensive precautionary measures and technical methods to mitigate and reduce hazards. The book will comprise answers to a set of questions frequently asked by the public particularly during the periods with considerable lightning activity. Ignorance of the characteristics of lightning and its hazards is one of the main reasons for continuing increase of death toll and property damage by lightning.

Lightning activity over Sri Lanka shows peaks during two Inter-monsoon seasons, March-May and October-November. During these periods convective clouds (Cumulonimbus) develop over many parts of the island mostly during the afternoon or evening. Sri Lanka witnesses over 50 deaths of human beings and damage to property of billions of rupees worth every year. I have participated in studies of various characteristics, hazards and vulnerability to lightning in Sri Lanka in association with the National Research Council, the National Science Foundation, University of Colombo, Uppsala University, Sweden and my own Department. These completed projects have resulted in several reports and papers. Most of the victims were found to be the poor and the workers with low income. Living in unprotected places and not taking precautions for minimizing lightning hazards are also common reasons for lightning disasters. The poor living conditions and exposure to lightning at worksites are the causes of most of the deaths. Books are expensive in Sri Lanka and it is difficult for the average person to buy them. Awareness regarding natural hazards in Sri Lanka is rather low as the public are reluctant to buy books. Therefore, it would be best if the book is sold at a very low and affordable prize. The book that I am editing will cost around Rs.80/= Sri Lankan rupees (SLR) a copy to print. I expect to print 10,000 copies for distribution at a very low cost of Rs 10/=. The cost for all 10,000 copies shall be Rs.800,000 (US$ 8000/=). I am looking for financial support for the proposed service.

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• Article on the land take over to be published by TIEMPO from the University of East Anglia in September 2003- this is a newsmagazine that is widely distributed in the Climate Change Community.
• Followup article on the campaign has been submitted to Sri Lankan newspapers
  
• We shall petition the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change
  

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A workshop on Monitoring, Prediction and Warning of Tropical cyclones and Monsoon was held under the aegis of BIMST-EC forum at New Delhi, during 25-28 March, 2003. It was organised by National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) in close cooperation with the Department of Science & Technology(DST) and Ministry of External affairs, Govt. of India. The BIMST-EC is a new sub regional group to create an enduring environment for rapid economic development. To move cooperation forward in a tangible manner, the member countries have agreed to focus on six priority sectors. The above workshop was organised under the technology sector. The BIMST countries not only share the common socio-economic and geographic conditions but also experience common weather and climate, particularly the tropical cyclones and monsoon. As rapid developments have been taken place in the recent past in the capabilities in understanding and prediction of weather events in these countries, it was thought appropriate to take stock of these developments and share the relevant experience and knowledge for enhancing these capabilities further.

The organization of the workshop was overseen by an International Organizing Committee chaired by Prof. V. S. Ramamurthy, Secretary, DST and the scientific programme committee was chaired by Dr. S. V. Singh, Head NCMRWF. Three scientists each from Bangladesh, Thailand and Sri Lanka and 45 delegates from India participated in the workshop. The Workshop was divided in 5 technical sessions viz. (i) Tropical Cyclones : Understanding, Prediction And Warning, (ii) Monsoon : Understanding and Prediction, (iii) Prediction and Impact of Extreme Weather Events (iv) Meteorological Observations, Communications, Disaster Management and Field Experiments and (v) Meteorological Training and Education. In each of the sessions presentations were made by the Indian as well as foreign delegates. For the purpose of coherent and focused discussion five subgroups were formed led by eminent scientists and the recommendation of these groups were presented by the group leaders and considered while making the final recommendations. Though the representatives from Myanmar could not attend the workshop, the Director General of Meteorology and Hydrology had sent his comments on different themes and these were considered by group leaders while formulating their recommendations as well as in the final discussions in the concluding session.

The programme also included an evening lecture by Mr. D. R. Sikka, an eminent scientist on 'Global Perspective of Monsoon and Tropical Cyclones’ . The workshop provided an opportunity to share each others experience and progress in prediction of severe weather events including tropical cyclones and monsoon. It was recognized that both the NCMRWF, India and TMD in Thailand run global forecast models on super computers. The Bangladesh and Sri Lanka used the forecasts produced by NCMRWF and they have acknowledge these forecasts to be highly useful. There was near unanimity in the participating countries for move closer collaboration in the area of numerical weather prediction related training and data exchange.

Some of the other important recommendations included the organization of joint field experiments and exchange visitors for carrying out collaboration work. This desire of investigating the mysteries together by the counties surrounding the Bay of Bengal augur well for development of capabilities for predicting high impact weather in the region. Just after this workshop, a team of four scientists from Sri Lankan Meteorological Department visited NCMRWF for one week to familiarize with the modeling activities of NCMRWF and to discuss about the future collaboration towards installation of PC based meso-scale models.

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Flooding in Sri Lanka in May 2003 by Lareef Zubair.

Heavy rainfall deluged South-Western Sri Lanka between the 11^th and 19^th of May 2003.  Floods and landslides claimed 260 lives. Schools, homes and other infrastructure destroyed. The historical average rainfall in the South-Western corner comprising parts of Southern part of Sabragamuwa and Southern Provinces for May is 275 mm. The heaviest rainfall on record is 600 mm during 1936; the lowest is 18 mm in 1953. So the regional average rainfall for 2003 of 450 mm is high but not extreme. But last May’s rainfall was concentrated in a few places and in one week and particular on the 17^th.  The monthly rainfall in Ratnapura was 718 mm with half of that falling on the 17^th of May.

What were the weather conditions that led to this rainfall? Strangely, it turns out that it was due to a cyclonic storm.  Strange because, there has been no record of such a storm making landfall in Sri Lanka during May. This is one reason why people were caught unawares. 

The 2003 cyclonic storm did not make landfall in Sri Lanka but was far away in the Bay of Bengal! The storm started 700 km to the East of Sri Lanka on the 11^th of May and made its way to the North and North-East until it reached Myanmar on the 20^th. As seen in the rainfall estimates for the Indian Ocean, there was heavy rainfall along the path of the cyclone and in a spot far away in South-Western Sri Lanka.

Why that corner of Sri Lanka got soaked when a cyclone traveled so far away is a freak combination of geography and wind patterns. In that fateful week unusual North-Westerly regional wind patterns stalled the cyclone in the middle of the Bay of Bengal for a few days and  one of the octopus like spiral arms of the cyclone (which draws in expanses of air to feeds its core) gusted over Sri Lanka. During May, the cloud bands that usually deluge Kerala at the end of month hovers over Sri Lanka. The cyclonic gusts from the South-West (which entrained some of these clouds) were interrupted by South-Western most mountains precipitating the deluge on their south-western slopes. The rainfall patterns resemble a shadow of Sri Pada or Adams Peak towards the South-West. Later, we found out that Kerala and Tamil Nadu had rainfall deficits in June. 

This mechanism of mountain-induced rainfall is the reason why the westward slopes of the central mountain ridge running from Kirigalpotta to Hantanna mountains and Knuckles get such heavy rainfall during the middle of the year as strong wind below from the West. This time however the wind was from the South-West and the rainfall pattern for May 2003 is on largely on the South-Westward slopes. This is why Deniyaya received heavy rainfall while Watawala and Matale received relatively low rainfall last May.

The major disasters affecting Sri Lanka, namely floods, landslides, droughts and cyclones, have hydro-meteorological antecedents. Last May’s flooding and landslides and previous hydro-meteorological disasters such as the cyclones in 1978 and 2000 that affected the North-East and the recurrent drought that affects the South-East and North-West underscores the urgent need for local computational weather prediction.  Of course, it is not only the matter of issuing hazard warnings that shall reduce damages but also its translation to hazard warning and the implementation of appropriate communication of warnings and disaster preparedness and mitigation and response systems. 

Even with all its shortcomings, computational weather prediction has the potential to forewarn of weather and climate spawned hazards. Indeed, the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting of India was able to predict high rainfall in Sri Lanka with useful accuracy three days in advance last May 2003 in an experimental mode. The development of indigenous computational weather and climate prediction capability should be a national priority. 

Acknowledgement: The use of rainfall data from the Department of Meteorology is gratefully acknowledged.

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Cast of Acclaimed Fluid Dynamicists as Plenary Lecturers at the 10th Asian Congress of Fluid Mechanics in Sri Lanka to be held in May 2004

Venue: University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. 
Dates: 17-21 May 2004

Email: acfmx@pdn.ac.lk
Website: http://acfmx.pdn.ac.lk/

Already Prof. K.R. Sreenivasan, Director of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Prof. Shigeo Kida from the National Institute of Fusion Sciences in Japan, Dr. He Dexin of the China Aerodynamic Research and Development Centre,  Prof. Lord Julian Hunt of Cambridge University, Dr. P.N. Shankar of the National Aeronautical Laboraties in India and Prof. Hassan Aref of Virginia Technological College of Engineering, USA shall provide plenary lectures.

The Asian Fluid Mechanics Committee (AFMC) was founded in 1980 to advance research in Fluid Mechanics in Asia through interaction and exchange of information between workers in the field of Fluid Mechanics. It has been adopted as a member of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM) soon after its founding and grown in scope and range of research activity during the past 22 years.

The inaugural Asian Congress of Fluid Mechanics was held in Bangalore in 1980 and subsequent Congresses were in Beijing, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taejon, Singapore, Chennai, Shenzhen and Isfahan. Since inception, the Congress has firmly established itself as a leading event in the international calendar of fluid mechanics.

Papers should be sent to the relevant country representative:

China:
Professor Erjie Cui, Beijing Institute of Aerodynamics, P.O. Box 7201, Beijing 100 074, China  E-mail: ttggs@public.fhnet.cn.net
 
India:
Dr. T.S. Prahlad (Vice-Chairman), Chairman, INCOAF, Director, National Aerospace Laboratories, P B No. 1779, Kodahalli, Bangalore 560 017, India
E-mail: director@css.nal.res.in
 
Japan:
Professor Yu Fukunishi, Department of Machine Intelligence and Systems Engineering
Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Aramaki-Aoba 01, Aoba-ku
Sendai, 980-8579, Japan, E-mail: fushi@fluid.mech.tohoku.ac.jp
 
Sri Lanka:
Professor S. Sivasegaram, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, E-mail: ssivasegaram@pdn.ac.lk
 
Deadlines:

1 Oct. 2003 Submission of paper
1 Jan. 2004 Notification of acceptance
1 Mar. 2004 Advance registration & reservation of accommodation

at
Munnar, Kerala, India
October 6-10, 2003
Objective and Goal:

SiVom aims to begin a dialogue, and initiate an in-depth discussion between the group with intimate knowledge of the tropical dynamics on one hand and the group with expertise in areas related to dynamical systems, modelling and predictability on the other. SiVoM will also try to seek a common ground and formulate an action plan that can lead to an effective synergy between these groups.
Deadlines:
Extended Abstract     30.07.2003    
Accommodation booking     30.07.2003    
Submission of manuscript (optional)      15.08.2003     
Travel plan      30.09.2003  

Web: http://www.cmmacs.ernet.in/sivom/index1.html
Contact: sivom@cmmacs.ernet.in

Editors Note: The organizers have agreed to host Sri Lankan students (and perhaps scientists) at the rate for Indians.

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Subscriptions lost with email account - if you submitted your forms recently please redsend.

NAME: Dr K P S C Jayaratne
Address: Department of Physics, University of colombo, Colombo-03.
Telephone: 0777 309385, 01 583106/7 Ext 283, 01 584777.
FAX: 01 583810
Email: chandana@phys.cmb.ac.lk
Description of my involvement in the field. Course coordinator and the founder of the MSc Course in Atmopheric Physics
and Dynamical Meteorology, University of Colombo. Lecturer of the fourth year Atmospheric Physics course unit(BSc Sprcial degree) and third year Enviornmental Physics Course Unit(BSc general degree) at the Dept. Physcics, University of Colombo. Conduct research on thunderstorm electricty, fair-weather atmospheric electricty and lightning prtection and presently engage as a member of the Sri Lanka Standards Institute committee on preparering the Sri Lanka Standards for Lightning Protection. Currently conduct research on Ozone columnar density measurements in Sri Lanka and collaborative research with NBRO on air pollution measrement and modeling.

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