JAMAICANS are being warned to prepare for a sustained dry period this spring once again, due to abnormal rainfall creating serious implications for water supply and resources similar to 2019.

“This is a kind of deja vu signal for us, and it could spell further concerns for the availability of rainfall in the Corporate Area,” Evan Thompson, director of the National Meteorological Service told a Jamaica House press conference, yesterday.

He was among a number of experts assembled by the minister with responsibility for water and housing in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Senator Pearnel Charles Jr, to explain to the media the challenges that stakeholders are likely to face.

Charles said that a severe dry spell would affect storage levels in the catchment areas and reduce the National Water Commission’s (NWC) distributive capacity. He added that in order to be able to maintain a standard, regulations would have to be enforced with limited access to water at times.

“The plan that we have to manage the drought is a multi-sectoral approach to sustainable drought management, and remember drought does not only affect our water supply, but irrigation as well,” he warned.

Explaining how things have progressed since the October/November rainy season, Thompson said that a dry trend has developed since November, and normal rainfall in December was not enough to make up for the deficit from the summer which would have required an above normal level of rainfall to make up the difference.

He said that at the end of December, two parishes – St Mary and Portland – were characterised as having drought conditions. Another six parishes – Kingston, St Andrew, St Ann, St Catherine, St James, and St Thomas – had dryer than normal conditions which meant that “there was no drought, but they were dryer than normal”.

Thompson said, however, that data collection for January 2020 was still in progress, and after being collected would have to be analysed before being released. But, it would appear that the persistent trickle of rainfall does suggest a firming up of the dry environment.

Said Thompson: “January did not produce any excess rainfall across the country. So it is unlikely that we will see any reversal of what we had going into November, 2019.”

In addition, he noted that the drought indices and projections from both regional and local sources, including the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology in Barbados, suggest that there won’t be much more rainfall going forward into April when things are expected to start improving.

Thompson noted that with rainfall being the country’s only hope for replenishment of its water resources, the regional forecast for the rest of the dry season is that conditions will “remain on the dryer side of normal”, at least until April.

He said that this is also the view of the Caribbean Climate Outlook Forum, which is also based in Barbados.

“So we are expecting near to normal conditions, but more with a bias towards dry conditions and this is for most of the country,” he said, noting that St Mary and St Ann could experience moderate to dry periods, as would be the case with most north-central and north-eastern parishes.

Chairman of the National Water Commission Senator Aubyn Hill acknowledged that the dry spell could have serious implications for the country and the commission.

“We have to be proactive with the management of the country’s water resources. To this end we have taken steps to ensure that customers will have water over the drought period,” Senator Hill said.

He said that the NWC was continuously monitoring its major facilities — the Hermitage Dam and the Mona Reservoir.

“The inflows to these facilities have been declining, which is not unusual during this first normal dry period of the calendar year [but] the predictions suggest a long, dry/drought period and, as such, the NWC has to be proactive,” Hill stated.

He said that the lack of rainfall, coupled with the rapid decline in the river inflows, have commenced, reducing night time inflows within the network of the Corporate Area.

He added that the NWC was also committed to increasing trucking to adversely affected communities, and schedules will be publicised regarding the areas that will be visited.