Jakarta. Indonesia will experience a late and rather wet dry season this year due to the La Nina phenomenon, which is predicted to develop next month, the national weather agency said on Wednesday (22/06).

"The start of the dry season will be delayed for one or two months. At the moment, the dry season has arrived in only 50 percent of Indonesia's regions," Nurhayati, head of the climate, agroclimate and maritime affairs division at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), told the Jakarta Globe.

Dry seasons in Indonesia usually arrive in May, but this is shifting due to La Nina, which causes extreme weather.

Weather patterns in the archipelago have been also unpredictable over the past two weeks.

"Precipitation will be higher than usual. It is the impact of the La Nina dipole mode phenomenon and warm ocean temperatures around Indonesia," Nurhayati said.

As La Nina starts to affect Indonesia, the country will once again face an increased likelihood of forest and peatland fires, which blanketed parts of the archipelago and neighboring Malaysia and Singapore in acrid haze last year.

The last year's fires – which observers described as the worst on record – destroyed vegetation on millions of hectares of peatland, afflicted more than half a million people with respiratory problems and resulted in billions of dollars in economic losses. It is highly probable that this situation will return this year if Indonesia does not cooperate with its neighbors to deal with forest and peatland fires.

On the other hand, La Nina could increase the potential for natural disasters, such as floods and landslides.

According to National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), more than 50 people were killed this week due to floods and landslides in separate parts of the country.

The climate phenomenon also affects the lives of animals, such as the 32 pilot whales that beached themselves at Probolinggo in East Java last week, presumably after they became disoriented by recent extreme weather changes.