The probability that the current El Niño escalates into a strong El Niño over the next three months has risen to 98 per cent, Director General of Meteorology Ajith Wijemannage told a press conference in Colombo on Friday, Hiru News reported.
It is the first probability figure the department has attached to the forecast. When it set out its rainfall and drought outlook on 4 September, it gave no odds at all — a gap noted here at the time. The department had already described the developing event as the strongest in 75 years in August, but without quantifying the likelihood.
Rain reaches the worst-affected district
Normal rainfall was recorded in Monaragala town and surrounding areas on Thursday, lasting nearly an hour, after more than two months of severe water shortages.
Monaragala is the district worst hit by the dry spell. As of Wednesday it accounted for 42,429 of the 154,167 people affected across eight districts.
The relief is not uniform. Residents of Buttala and Wellawaya told local correspondents that sugarcane nearing harvest has already been damaged, and warned the losses could feed through to sugar production.
More rain forecast, and heat warnings alongside it
The department expects fairly heavy rain above 50 millimetres in several areas over the next 36 hours, in a separate advisory. Rain will develop in the Uva and Eastern provinces and the Mullaitivu district, with several spells also expected in the Western and Sabaragamuwa provinces and the Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Galle and Matara districts.
At the same time the department warned that heat index levels would stay at a cautionary level on Friday across the North Central and Eastern provinces and the Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Vavuniya, Kurunegala, Monaragala and Hambantota districts — Monaragala appearing on both the rain and the heat list.
The reservoir claim sits awkwardly with the storage data
Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture D. P. Wickramasinghe said irrigation reservoirs hold adequate water for Maha season cultivation.
That is a more confident reading than the storage figures support on their face. National major-reservoir storage stood at 34.3% of effective capacity on 6 September, and the Irrigation Department has warned that some provinces face water stress until rain arrives. Yala releases have already been halted across Polonnaruwa. Neither Wickramasinghe nor the report reconciles the two positions, and it is possible he is speaking to expected October–November inflows rather than water in storage today.
A final decision on the 2026/27 Maha season is due on 18 September, with farmers urged to finish sowing between 15 and 25 October.
Not reported
The report does not say what threshold defines a “strong” El Niño, what the probability was previously, or which model the 98% comes from — the department’s own or an international agency’s. It does not give a figure for how much rain fell in Monaragala, say whether the falls were widespread across the district or confined to the town, or indicate whether they are enough to resume any irrigation releases. No estimate is given of the sugarcane loss in Buttala and Wellawaya, and the Sugar Corporation is not quoted.
Ada Derana carried the same press conference but was unreachable behind a CloudFront block, and the Daily Mirror was unavailable, so both accounts here rest on Hiru News.
