SINGAPORE - A third monsoon surge brought rain and lowered temperatures to 23.6 deg C at around noon on March 19.

The eastern part of the Republic was covered by rain clouds at around 9.15am, and an hour later, it was raining all over Singapore, according to the National Environment Agency’s (NEA) myENV map.

Heavier rain clouds were observed in central and eastern Singapore at 10.20am, but no floods were reported in the PUB Flood Alerts channel on the Telegram messaging app.

This comes after NEA warned about a monsoon surge from March 19 to 21, which may bring temperatures down to as low as 22 deg C amid periods of moderate to heavy showers over Singapore.

This third surge event so far in 2025 is uncommon, as these surges tend to occur during the earlier phase of the north-east monsoon season – between December and January. Singapore is now in the end phase of the monsoon season, which typically lasts till March.

According to the Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS), the most recent intense wet surge happening late in the season occurred between Feb 28 and March 1 in 2023. This was followed by a weaker surge from March 3 to 4 that year.

A monsoon surge refers to bursts of cold air from the north-east, such as Central Asia, which warms as it sweeps southwards towards the tropics and rolls over the South China Sea. It then picks up moisture, which leads to the formation of dense rain clouds.