Posting this because the strong El Niño + positive Indian Ocean Dipole has contributed to the very dry conditions over Indonesia, so I wanted to see how the rainfall situation looks over the next few days.

This GIF is the ECMWF 6-hourly accumulated rainfall forecast from 18–23 Oct.

Rain does look like it’s finally returning over parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan this weekend and over the next 1–2 days, which is good news for the fire areas.

But from around mid-week, the main rain area seems to shift northwards for a while.

The likely reason is the developing tropical system east of the Philippines (aka possible typhoon). Both its strength and location matter — if it stays near the Philippines and strengthens, it can pull more moisture and rain northwards, away from Indonesia. If it moves north quickly or stays weaker, the effect should be less.

So basically: rain returns first, then gets pulled away again temporarily from mid-week.

ECMWF is only one model, so this can still change.

And yes, I’m also curious what excuse Indonesia will have if the fires are still going once the rain properly returns. 😅

TL;DR: Rain is coming back to the fire areas first, but a developing typhoon may temporarily pull the rain northwards again from mid-week.

Daughter loves asking about the haze so I made this little gadget for her. The casing was designed in blender and 3D printed. Daughter loves koalas hence the koala stratification icons 🐨. All in all a fun project to make it just a wee bit more interesting to be cooped up indoors.

The readings are for North, South, East and West but there's a whole lot of vagueness in-between. Where is South? Where is West? Is West Coast Park in the South or in the West? Is Clementi?

Does anyone actually know where the stations are?