TEMPERATURES in Yangon have fluctuated more than usual this winter due to changing influences from weather patterns to the north and south of Myanmar, a meteorologist in Yangon said last week.

The acting director-general of the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology under the Ministry of Transportation, U Tun Lwin, said weather conditions in Myanmar are influenced by cold air moving down from the north and tropical air moving up from the south.

“Lower Myanmar gets cooler when the influence from the north is greater, and it gets warmer when it is influenced by tropical air from the south,” he said.

Yangon has experienced two unusually cool periods since the beginning of January, each lasting several days. The lowest recorded temperature during the month was 13.5 degrees Celsius.

The average minimum temperature in Yangon in January was 17.2 degrees Celsius.

U Tun Lwin said Yangon was likely to experience more cool spells in February before temperatures began to gradually rise towards the end of the month, although he added that extremely low temperatures were unlikely for the rest of winter.

He said northern Myanmar was more heavily influenced than Yangon by cold air moving south. While the minimum temperature in Yangon on January 23 was 14.5 degrees Celsius, on the same day the thermometer hit minus one degree Celsius in Haka in Chin State, one degree Celsius in Mogok in Mandalay Division, and four degrees Celsius in Pyin Oo Lwin in Mandalay Division.

“In December, unusually strong tropical weather patterns from the south caused three big storms in the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea,” said U Tun Lwin, adding that the cool season began late this year due to the influence of such storms, in addition to the persistence of scattered rain into November.