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1. Review of Regional Weather Conditions in January 2010

1.1      Moderate to weak Northeast Monsoon season prevailed in January 2010, bringing dry conditions to the northern ASEAN region for most parts of the month. In the southern ASEAN region, the rainy season continued to affect Indonesia, southern Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and the Philippines.

1.2     A short-lived tropical depression, “01W”, developed over the South China Sea approximately 400km southeast of Ho Chi Minh City on 18 January 2010. The storm tracked west-northwestward towards southern Vietnam where it dissipated over the land upon making landfall two days later. Northern Thailand, Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam experienced a brief respite from the dry conditions as rain bands from the storm resulted in moderate rainfall over these areas.

1.3     In the southern ASEAN region, the monsoon trough was located mostly close to the equator over the Indonesian archipelago. The rain band from tropical depression “01W” also brought heavy rainfall to several places in Borneo including Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei Darussalam. However, southern Sumatra, Singapore and Peninsula Malaysia were spared of the extensive rain clouds and experienced mainly dry and windy conditions during this period.

1.4      For the month, more than 50% normal rainfall was received over the northern ASEAN region except for the western parts of Thailand and Myanmar where less than 50% normal rainfall were recorded. The above normal rainfall was mainly contributed by the tropical depression “01W”. In the southern ASEAN region, rainfall was normal to slightly above normal for most of the region, with the exception of Peninsular Malaysia and southern Sumatra, which received below to slightly below normal rainfall. The rainfall pattern for January 2010 is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig 1. Percentage of Normal Rainfall for January 2010

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