Jordan | Does a weak start to the rainy season necessarily mean a weak rainy season?

Arab Weather - The Kingdom has witnessed a clear weakness in rainfall amounts since the beginning of the current season, as rainfall amounts record numbers much lower than usual rates. Current data indicate that the rainfall performance of the season is very weak, as the rainfall rate reached only 11% in the central regions of the Kingdom, reflecting a sharp decline from the normal levels for this period of the year. This is currently attributed to a group of influential weather factors.

Reasons for the poor performance of the rainy season so far

The scientific reason behind the poor performance of the rainy season is due to the dominance of unfavorable weather systems for the advance of low-pressure systems and cold basins towards the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea, where weather systems prevail that lead to stable weather conditions, with the absence of any radical changes that would lead to strong rain activity in the region. Cold polar air flows towards western Europe and northwest Africa, and this flow has caused strong rainstorms in those areas.

In contrast, warm air rushes towards the eastern Mediterranean, which has enhanced the stability of the atmosphere over Jordan and the Levant, and reduced the chances of rain clouds forming as a result of the dominance of high air pressure values in all layers of the atmosphere and the activity of sinking air currents.

Does a weak start to the rainy season necessarily mean a weak rainy season?

In this context, weather experts at the Arab Weather Regional Center confirmed that despite the weak performance of the rainy season so far, this does not necessarily mean that the entire rainy season will be weak, as the final total for the rainy season does not depend on the rains that fall only during the fall, and that there are many seasons in which the fall did not witness any good rainfall, while the final rain totals for the season ended with rainfall amounts around or above seasonal averages.

Statistical climate data issued by the Jordan Meteorological Department indicate that the Kingdom suffered from weak rainfall at the beginning of the rainy season in about 50 previous rainy seasons out of 100 rainy seasons, which constitutes 50% of the number of rainy seasons. This reflects the extent of the great fluctuation in rainfall performance at the beginning of the seasons from one year to the next.

For snow lovers, there is no relationship between the weak start of the rainy season and the chances of snow. In previous seasons, the Kingdom witnessed snowfall despite the weak performance of the rainy season. The chances of snowfall are linked to the cold air masses that reach the Kingdom in winter, and the weak start of the rainy season has no relationship to the chances of snowfall.

And God knows best.