Strong winds to hit Lanka

by Manjula Fernando

Sri Lanka will experience fairly strong winds in the coming days due to the two tropical storms in Vietnam and off Philippines islands but the strong showers in Colombo and the suburbs yesterday were due to the active Southwestern Monsoon.

The Meteorology Department said there will be no direct impact on our weather conditions due to storms Nock-Ten and Muifa. The tropical Storm Muifa which is positioned over Philippine Sea is expected to strengthen into a category 1 typhoon but it is not yet confirmed whether it will hit land.

“These storms could bring fairly strong winds over Southwestern areas of the country especially western slopes of the central hills,” Meteorologist in Charge D.A. Jayasinghe told the Sunday Observer.

He said there will be scattered showers in Colombo and suburbs in the coming week due to the active Southwestern Monsoon from May to September.

During this period the Meteorology Department forecast rain in Western, Sabaragamuwa and Central provinces as well as Galle and Matara districts in the Southern province.

However the South Western monsoon was fairly dry this year, Jayasinghe said attributing the dry weather to the change of wind patterns. “During this season we get the wind flow from the south westerly by direction but during the past weeks the wind flow was from a northwesterly direction. It was dry wind from Arabic side.”