Baguio chill dips to 10.5°C

BAGUIO CITY , Philippines  – Baguio’s temperature further dipped to 10.5 degrees Celcius yesterday morning, a few notches down from the 11.4 degrees Wednesday dawn, sending more residents here into shivers, most refusing to rise under their bedsheets as the chill “was biting.”

The startling low record came as the highlands entered into its second month of the so-called cold tri-months.

The state-run Pagasa earlier predicted a further dip from last December’s chill that went down to an erratic 12-14 degrees. Letty Dispo said they expect the chill to further dip.

In January 2009, Baguio experienced a low of 7.5 degrees, several notches away from the record low of 6.3 in January 1961.

This, amid warnings by Pagasa of a developing El Niño phenomenon where a hot weather is expected starting February.

According to the Climate Monitoring and Prediction Section, Climatology and Agrometeorology Division (CAD) of Pagasa, the current El Niño episode continues to persist across the equatorial Pacific Ocean and reached a moderate strength.

“Leading climate models suggest tropical ocean temperatures are approaching their peak and will remain above El Niño thresholds through March 2010,” it said, thus, “it will likely influence the country’s climate through the first half of the year.”

Pagasa furthered that rainfall condition for the month of December was unusually way below normal in most areas of Luzon. Likewise, Western Visayas experienced way below normal rainfall, while the central and eastern portions experienced below to near normal conditions. This, while greater portions of Mindanao experienced below normal rainfall condition and only the eastern and western portions showed near normal rainfall values. “These are clear manifestations of the impacts of El Niño in the country,” Pagasa said. – Artemio Dumlao