Snowfall In West Papua, While Severe Drought Hits Other Parts Of New Guinea

Johnny
Blades RNZ Pacific senior journalist

Extreme
weather patterns continue to hit the Pacific region with
some of the highest parts of New Guinea experiencing snow
this week.

Reports from West Papua say parts of the
highlands region have been blanketed by snow and ice in
recent days.

This includes parts of Lanny Jaya regency
– Go, Balum Kuyawage, and West Wano districts. In the case
of Kuyawage, the snowfall follows a pattern of drought and
frost over recent weeks.

Snow is not unusual for West
Papua’s Jayawijaya mountains, where the world’s only glacier
in a tropical region exists.

However, snowfall is rare
in other parts of this region and usually means crop failure
and food insecurity for local communities.

At the same
time, other parts of New Guinea, including Papua New Guinea,
are experiencing severe drought as a result of the El Niño
weather phase.

In South Papua on the Indonesian side
of the giant island, rampant clearance of lowland forest and
wetlands for agriculture projects has created dangerous fire
hotspots, exacerbated by El Niño.

A new satellite
fire-monitoring platform, Firewatch,
had detected more than 96,000 hotspots across Indonesia as
of late last month.

All up, an estimated approximately
103,000 hectares of land burned nationwide during the first
half of 2026.

And as El Niño tightens its grip,
forecasters warn the fire risk could increase
more.

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