It’s not all bad news
We all know how terrible a year 2016 was – from tragic celebrity deaths to the election of President Trump, it was pretty depressing overall, but according to the Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS), 2016 was even a bad year for weather.
Warmest Year Ever
If you thought that last year was unusually warm, you’d be right. In the MSS’ Annual Climate Assessment Report, they pointed out that 2016 beat the previous joint record set by 2015, 1998, and 1997, with an annual mean temperature of 28.4°C, which exceeded the climatological average by 0.9°C. Looking into the monthly averages, January (28.3℃), April (29.4℃) and August (28.9℃) in 2016 also managed to break record for being the warmest months compared to other years.
According to experts, the record breaking warm weather last year was consistent with the ongoing global warming phenomenon, and not due to 2016 just being a bad year (but we beg to differ). In addition to global warming, however, the climate cycle called El Nino is also to be blamed. An unusually strong El Nino effect, one of the strongest since 1950, emerged in late 2015 and continued well into 2016.
What Does This Mean For Singapore?
The MSS report stated that “while declining in the first half 2016, [the El Nino effect] still had a significant impact on temperature and rainfall across Singapore and the surrounding region, which experienced hot and dry weather spells in March and April 2016.”
Last year’s warm and dry weather conditions could have contributed to the historically low water levels at Johor’s Linggiu Reservoir when it dipped to 20 percent in October. Linggiu Reservoir, which supplies about 50 percent of Singapore’s water requirement, has started to recover, rising to over 30 percent capacity in January.
The good news though is that the experts expect 2017 to be a wetter and cooler year, as La Niña, which is basically the reverse of El Nino and is predicted to continue for the better part of the year. 2017 is shaping up to be a rather good year with good weather after all.