Atuna will give you an update on the local and weather situation in sensitive El Niño areas.
Australia / New Zealand / Papua New Guinea
"At the moment El Niño is playing games with us," climate expert Ashmita Gosai of the New Zealand Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research told Reuters. Australia and parts of Papua New Guinea have been in the grip of fierce drought for a while now, slashing the money-earning grain crops in the vast island continent and forcing some PNG schools to shut for lack of water.
Solomon Islands
The Solomons, wracked by two years of ethnic conflict and financial chaos, was already seeing signs of drought, said Meteorological Service acting director Chanel Iroi. Farmers should expect water shortages, fishermen a shift in the feeding patterns of tuna and the public a rise in illnesses like conjunctivitis and chest infections, Iroi warned, according to the Pacific Islands News Association.
Vanuatu
In Vanuatu, next in line as the effects of El Niño extend across the ocean, officials are visiting outlying islands that depend on rainwater to warn locals to store food. Climate officer Salesa Kaniaha of the island nation's weather service said there were signs of coral bleaching, which occurs when heat stresses the coral, leading in severe cases to the death of parts of reefs that sustain a rich variety of life.
Officials are also educating islanders about El Niño, which Vanuatu's people have in the past blamed on "black magic" and confronted simply with rituals and superstition, he said.
"We've been going through some time of dryness," Kaniaha told Reuters by telephone. "So far it doesn't seem to have been too bad, but we're still monitoring because this El Niño is expected to last until the beginning of next year."
Cook Islands
Ioane Kake of the meteorological service in the Cook Islands said drought was the main topic of discussion and of local news. "We're starting to run out of water now," Kake said. "It will affect the fishing industry too, and agriculture." The impact is, however, by no means uniform.
Fiji
In the Fiji islands, which lie between Vanuatu and the Cooks, climate forecaster Simon Mcgree said the country had received above average rainfall in the past three months. He said that was normal for an El Niño year as its impact may take a few months to reach Fiji and its sugar crop, if at all.
Kiribati
Likewise Kiribati, a chain of atolls to the north, was experiencing higher than average rainfall, said Gosai.
Gosai said the warm pool of water drifting toward South America was about one degree Celsius warmer than average, compared to the three to four degrees observed during 1997/98.
In recent days, a slight rise in sea surface temperatures had been offset by a hike in the Southern Oscillation Index, an El Niño indicator. El Niño symptoms strengthen as the index falls. But a further weakening of the Trade Winds, which normally blow from east to west across the central Pacific, could imply some more warming of the ocean near South America down the road.
The Trade Winds normally pile up warm sea waters in the western Pacific around Southeast Asia but during an El Niño, the winds weaken or collapse, allowing the warm pool of water to migrate east across the Pacific, bringing the wet tropical weather along for the ride.
Gosai said given the conflicting signals, this El Niño's impact was still too early to call.