IRI Climate Information Digest - Impacts May 1999

HEALTH

• Yellow fever vaccines have been requested for the regions experiencing floods in northeastern Peru.

HAZARDS/THREATS

• Continuous, heavy rainfall has resulted in serious floods in Iquitos  and the department of Loreto, located in the Amazon region of northeastern Peru.
• The drought in northern Mexico continued with reservoirs in the Yaqui Valley down to 16% of capacity.
• Officials have warned that China's worst drought in a decade has left the earth too parched to absorb this summer's seasonal rains in the Yangtze basin and could lead to severe flooding for the second year in a row.
• United States suffered through a series of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes early in the month, particularly in Oklahoma and Kansas.  An estimated 1,000 homes were destroyed in one series of very strong tornados.

AGRICULTURE

• In Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia unseasonably warm, dry weather favored winter grain maturation and early harvest activities.
• In the North China plain, rainfall benefited filling winter wheat and boosted topsoil moisture for summer crop planting after warm, dry weather stressed winter wheat and slowed summer crop planting earlier in the month.
• Dry weather favored summer crop harvesting across Argentina and southern Brazil after showers slowed harvesting early in the month. Late May showers in Southern Brazil favored germinating winter wheat.
• In Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines widespread showers boosted moisture supplies for main-season rice planting, but caused some flooding.
• Southern and eastern India and Bangladesh experienced timely planting rains from the southwest monsoon.
• Seasonal rains were delayed in northeastern Mexico early in the month. Rain provided limited drought relief to the north and northeast and aided in pre-planting fieldwork in the western corn belt during the latter part of the month.

FISHERIES