El Nino threatens to heat up Vietnam summer

Hoang Phuc Lam, deputy director of the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting (NCHMF), said the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, a recurring climate pattern caused by changes in water temperature in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, would remain in its neutral phase from now through June.

After that the sea temperature in the central Pacific would increase gradually.

Due to the impact of the phenomenon, temperatures in Vietnam from April to June will be one degree Celsius higher than normal.

There will be heat waves of three-five days and even longer in the central region.

The hottest days will be from June to July in the north and from the end of June to August in the central region, with the possibility of temperatures climbing to 37-39 degrees or even higher.

The heat waves are expected to end in the south in June but last until early August in the north and later that month in the central region.

Lam said due to El Nino there would be fewer storms and tropical depressions this year than in 2020-22, when there were 12-13 a year, with five-six making landfall over the Vietnamese mainland.

This year storms would only start to appear in mid-June.

From August to October there could be six-seven storms and tropical depressions, most hitting the northern and central regions.

Also under the impacts of El Nino, Vietnam will receive less rain this summer and drought should be expected in the northern and central regions.