Hazy Conditions Affecting Three ASEAN Neighbours Likely To Persist - Expert

By Tengku Noor Shamsiah Tengku Abdullah SINGAPORE, Oct 2 (Bernama) -- The haze problem affecting Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore has been going on for several weeks now, and is likely being exasperated by the drier than normal pattern brought on by El Nino. According to AccuWeather senior meteorologist Jason Nicholls, the current haze problem is probably one of the worst in the past several years. "With little overall change in the pattern, we may be dealing with this haze problem through at least till mid-October," he told Bernama in an email interview. He said the big culprit for the severity this year was the excessive dryness brought on by El Nino which limited rain to clean out the atmosphere, as well as raising the wildfire threat. On cloud seeding, he said this was only marginally effective to begin with as it did not always lead to rainfall. "Not sure it is viable for Singapore to cloud seed since it is such a small area. For it to have any chance at being effective, clouds upstream would have to be seeded and hope the seeding leads to rain over the island as the cloud moves overhead," added Nicholls. AccuWeather is an American media company that provides commercial weather forecasting services worldwide. --BERNAMA