When Will Indonesia’s Dry Season Start? 

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) has released a forecast for the dry season in Indonesia in 2022, considering most areas in Indonesia are still raining frequently into the middle of March.

Head of BMKG Dwikorita Karnawati explained that, based on the current weather anomaly monitoring, La Nina will still persist until mid-2022. This means that there is still potential for increased rainfall. 

“As much as 47 percent of the season zone areas in Indonesia are predicted to be late for the dry season,” said Karnawati at a press conference on dry season forecasts on Friday 18th March 2022.

The arrival of the dry season is generally closely related to the transition from the Asian monsoon to the Australian monsoon.

“Until February 2022, the Asian monsoon wind flow is still quite strong as normal, it is predicted to continue until March 2022,” said Karnawati.

Predictions state that the shift in monsoon winds will occur as the Australian monsoon becomes active at the end of April 2022, and will begin to dominate the territory of Indonesia from May to August 2022.

It was emphasised that the start of Indonesia’s 2022 dry season did not coincide. From a total of 342 seasonal zones in Indonesia, the following is the forecast for the dry season this year: 

• A total of 29.8 percent of seasonal zones will enter the dry season in April, covering the season zones in Nusa Tenggara, Bali, and parts of Java.
• 22.8 percent of seasonal zones will experience the dry season in May, covering parts of Bali, Java, parts of Sumatra, parts of Kalimantan, Maluku, and parts of Papua.
• Another 23.7 percent of seasonal zones will experience dry season in June.

In more detail, as much as 47.7 percent of seasonal zones will enter the dry season later than normal. A total of 26.3 percent of seasonal zones will enter the dry season at the normal time, while as many as 26 percent of seasonal zones will enter the dry season earlier than normal.

The areas that will experience the dry season earlier include parts of Sumatra, parts of Java, southern Kalimantan, parts of Bali, parts of Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, and eastern Papua.