Spotlight: El Nino expected to wreak havoc in S. America well into 2016

After displacing over 100,000 South Americans with severe floods in 2015, the El Nino weather phenomenon is expected to wreak more havoc in the region well into 2016.

The global phenomenon -- triggered by unusually warm ocean surface temperatures in the central Pacific that disrupt weather patterns -- robbed rain from southeast Asia as it inundated parts of Latin America late last year.

In a Dec. 29 report, Josh Willis, a project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said satellite images potentially showed "we have not yet seen the peak of this El Nino," mainly because the amount of extra-warm surface water has continued to increase.

Some two weeks later, on Jan. 13, Colombia's meteorological institute (IDEAM) labeled the 2015/2016 El Nino as "the second strongest on record," adding it "continues in its stage of greatest intensity."

Extreme weather in parts of Latin America shows El Nino remains active.

Colombian environmental authorities in mid-January issued a red alert in several departments (states) affected by excessively high temperatures and drought during the Southern Hemisphere's summer season due to El Nino.

One of the departments worst hit so far is Huila, where 4,000 heads of cattle have perished from drought, which local officials are trying to fight by building deep wells and water reservoirs.

Other departments, such as Boyaca, are struggling with water shortages and forest fires. In the first two weeks of 2016 alone, 45 forest fires razed up to 116 hectares of woods.

Colombia's Environment Minister Gabriel Vallejo warned that temperatures in Tolima, where a health emergency was declared, are four degrees Celsius higher than the average for this time of year.

Other parts of the country, meanwhile, have seen crops ruined due to cold snaps.

Farmer Leandro Silva, a resident of Subachoque, in the department of Cundinamarca, told Xinhua what the local situation was by phone. "Here our crops have been damaged. The potatoes ruined, the grass ruined due to frost and the summer's not over.... I don't know what the weather will bring if this summer continues."

Silva said he couldn't recall living through a similar crisis due to weather.

"The water levels, the aqueducts are already being rationed ... the banks need to help the growers, because they are charging more interest," said Silva.

While frosts occur regularly at the start of the year in Colombia, during the Southern Hemisphere's summer dry season, 2016 has seen more extreme frosts, with nighttime temperatures falling to -2 degrees Celsius in central parts of the country.

During the day, however, the mercury has swung to the opposite extreme, with a record-breaking high of 45 degrees Celsius registered for Dec. 29 in Puerto Salgar, Cundinamarca.

In the capital Bogota, one of the country's colder spots, mid-January temperatures rose to 23 degrees Celsius, 10 degrees warmer than average.

Farther south, in Bolivia, El Nino has brought hail, flash floods and drought, while sending the seasonal rains expected this time of the year over to neighboring Brazil.

According to government sources, since November El Nino has led to 14 deaths, left some 20,000 families homeless, destroyed 5,500 hectares of crops and caused damage in 78 of the country's 339 cities.

The phenomenon also threatens 1.4 million heads of cattle and other livestock across five departments.

"The problem is that now El Nino is threatening drought, which has begun to damage crops. We hope the weather reaches some kind of balance to avoid the greater loss of agricultural production," Rural Development and Land Minister Cesar Cocarico told Xinhua.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) expects this El Nino to be among the four strongest registered in the past 65 years.

For Bolivia, the government has prepared contingency plans to attend to some 100,000 families, but to date only 20,000 families have been directly affected by extreme weather, the Civil Defense agency said.

The ripple effects, however, may reach many more people.

Andean mountain communities in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia are set to see more drought.

A lack of water is also affecting South America's electricity generation, due to insufficient water at hydropower plants, the main source of electric energy in Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela.

Lower energy production could in turn affect production and eat away at Latin America's gross domestic production (GDP) in 2016. Endi