A resident stands among the rubble of a house destroyed by a whirlwind in Sukadana village, Sumedang regency, West Java, on Feb 22, 2024. - Antara
JAKARTA: The recent occurrence of whirlwinds in multiple parts of West Java has prompted climate scientists to predict that the ongoing climate crisis could lead to more frequent and intense storms across the country.
Videos of a whirlwind in Rancaekek district, Bandung regency, began circulating on social media on Wednesday (Feb 21), showing a rotating column of air carrying debris from buildings in the area.
The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) confirmed the following day that whirlwinds had hit several districts of the regencies of Bandung and Sumedang between 3:30pm and 4pm on Wednesday.
Measurements performed in Jatinangor district, Bandung regency, found an approximate peak wind speed of 36.8 kilometres per hour.
The weather agency said the Asian monsoon, which brings increased wind and cloud-forming water vapour to the central and southern parts of the Indonesian archipelago, could have helped form the whirlwinds, which are typically accompanied by heavy rainfall.
The West Java Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) said the whirlwinds had damaged 534 buildings of houses, factories and shops in the two regencies. At least 21 people were injured in Bandung regency and 12 more in Sumedang, while more than 1,400 people took shelter in temporary camps set up by authorities.
Authorities and residents have been cleaning up building debris and fallen trees in the two regencies since Wednesday.
The Rancaekek incident attracted social media attention after Erma Yulihastin, a climatologist at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), called the weather event a “tornado” on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday.
Tornados are violent rotating columns of air that touch the ground and spawn from powerful thunderstorms, according to the United States National Weather Service’s definition. About 1,200 tornadoes hit the US annually.
On Friday, Erma posted a satellite photograph showing the Wednesday whirlwind in West Java with the caption, “For the first time, a small tornado over Indonesia was able to be captured by satellite.”
But Erma’s claim was dismissed by fellow BRIN climatologist Edvin Aldrian, who called the weather event in West Java a whirlwind, which do not reach the wind speeds typical of tornadoes and are more common in Indonesia.
“The vortex speed was much lower than [the common] tornado,” he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
Indonesia has experienced stronger storms with more devastating impacts, such as the Seroja tropical cyclone, which hit East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) and West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) in 2021. The cyclone’s peak wind speed was recorded at 100 kph.
Deni Septiadi, a meteorologist at the State College of Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (STMKG), said the Wednesday whirlwind might have been caused by increased atmospheric activity in recent weeks, triggered by high sea temperatures in some parts of the country.
Greater sea temperatures usually cause decreased barometric pressure, leading to cloud formation and higher wind speeds in West Java, Deni said.
“This high speed [...] then led to very strong wind shear around Rancaekek,” he said, referring to a phenomenon wherein nearby currents of wind blow in different directions or at different speeds.
Deni added that wind shear was common during transitions between rainy and dry season, especially as Indonesia’s position on the equator placed it around particularly warm ocean waters.
Edvin of BRIN concurred that rising ocean temperatures had caused weather systems to become more volatile, although he noted that the relationship between climate change and whirlwinds was complex.
“Countries and regions closer to the equator should be [relatively] free from cyclones. But lately, whirlwinds have become more frequent,” Edvin said. Cyclones are larger weather systems that rotate around a central area of low pressure.
He added that recent tropical cyclones’ “tails”, curved bands of clouds and thunderstorms that branch out from a cyclone’s central rotating column, were getting longer over time, causing more havoc than before.
If the ocean temperatures continued to rise, whirlwinds like the one in Rancaekek, as well as other damaging weather systems, could become more frequent, Deni and Edvin agreed.
Indonesia has experienced 8,625 whirlwinds between 2014 and 2024, according to data from the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), making it the most frequently occurring natural disaster in the country in the past 10 years.
At least 204 people lost their lives as a result of whirlwinds in the same period. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
