Rains seem to isolate the entire country as climatologists at the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) expect the El Niño phenomenon to peak this month.

PAGASA deputy director for operations Nathaniel Cruz expressed worry that dry spell and drought conditions across Visayas and Mindanao will worsen after the weather bureau recorded that only scattered light rains have occurred since December.

In a bulletin, PAGASA said that only isolated rains will come down from partly cloudy skies over Luzon and Visayas brought because of the prevailing Northeast monsoon, affecting the country since October. “Luzon and Visayas will have partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated rains.

The rest of the country will be partly cloudy to cloudy with isolated rainshowers or thunderstorms,” PAGASA said.

Cruz said this only source of replenishment of water sources for the past couple of weeks is not sufficient to ease dry spell and drought conditions, aggravating water needs in at least 20 provinces in Visayas and Mindanao.

PAGASA expects at least one tropical cyclone to visit the country but expressed low hopes for it to actually occur on February after the anti-cyclonic characteristics of Northeast monsoon prevented the development of storm in the Pacific Ocean last month.

While people in Luzon suffered from floods that devastated homes last September, residents in Capiz, Masbate, Northern Samar, and Occidental Mindoro last December, which have been experiencing drought conditions since October, are praying for rains.

Early in January, PAGASA announced that Benguet, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Batangas, Aurora, Quezon, Marinduque, Mindoro, Sorsogon, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Romblon, Northern Samar, Aklan, and Guimaras began experiencing dry spell.

PAGASA administrator Prisco Nilo added that Mindanao provinces such as Biliran, Davao del Sur, South Cotabato, Sarangani and Sultan Kudarat also had “exhibited three to four consecutive months of below normal rainfall condition” since September and October.