{"id":8752,"date":"2020-09-13T14:55:09","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T14:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/?p=8752"},"modified":"2020-09-13T14:55:09","modified_gmt":"2020-09-13T14:55:09","slug":"adequate-rainfall-forecast-for-sadc-during-2020-21-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/southern-african-news-features\/adequate-rainfall-forecast-for-sadc-during-2020-21-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Adequate rainfall forecast for SADC during 2020\/21 season"},"content":{"rendered":"

SANF 20 no 39<\/em> –\u00a0 by Egline Tauya<\/strong>
\nThe regional rainfall pattern for the 2020\/21 agricultural season is encouraging as the bulk of southern Africa is expected to receive adequate rainfall throughout the growing season.<\/p>\n

This is an improvement from the previous season when less rainfall resulted in adverse impacts on agriculture, water resources and hydropower generation in most of the region.<\/p>\n

The latest outlook produced by regional climate experts forecasts that there will be \u201cnormal to-above-normal\u201d rainfall across most of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) between October 2020 and March 2021.<\/p>\n

The consensus forecast was produced by the 24th\u00a0Southern African Regional Climate Outlook Forum (SARCOF 24) that met virtually on 27-28 August.<\/p>\n

The SARCOF forecast is divided into two parts, covering October-November-December (OND) 2020 and January-February-March (JFM) 2021.<\/p>\n

The forecast shows that the bulk of the SADC region is likely to receive high rainfall termed \u201cnormal to above-normal\u201d between October and December, although north-western Angola, bulk of the Democratic Republic of Congo, eastern Madagascar, northern Malawi, northern Mozambique, Seychelles, United Republic of Tanzania, and north-eastern Zambia are forecast to receive low rainfall termed \u201cnormal to below-normal\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbove-normal\u201d rainfall is defined as being within the wettest third of historically recorded rainfall amounts, while \u201cbelow-normal\u201d is within the driest third of rainfall amounts and \u201cnormal\u201d is rainfall within the middle third.<\/p>\n

The second half of the agricultural season, which covers the period January to March 2021, is expected to receive normal to above-normal rainfall for the entire SADC region.<\/p>\n

The prospects of adequate rainfall means that the region is likely to experience a good harvest during the 2020\/21 agricultural season.<\/p>\n

This is expected to be well received news following successive seasons of poor harvests in the 2018\/19 and 2019\/20 agricultural seasons.<\/p>\n

Based on the forecast, governments in the region were encouraged to ensure adequate availability of farming inputs such as seeds and fertilizers.<\/p>\n

Given the previous recurrent droughts in some parts of the region, governments and development partners were encouraged to support farmers by providing inputs.<\/p>\n

Experts noted the need to upgrade storage facilities to reduce chances of loss of harvests.<\/p>\n

The positive forecast points to improvement of river flows and dam levels in most parts of the SADC region, a development that is crucial for irrigation.<\/p>\n

The expected good rains will be an opportunity for water harvesting in most of the SADC region.<\/p>\n

Governments and farmers were encouraged to invest in rehabilitation of water storage facilities as well as in soil conservation, given the potential for waterlogging.<\/p>\n

The experts warned of the likelihood of flash floods in the low-lying areas of the entire region, especially during the second half of the season.<\/p>\n

Based on this potential threat, experts advised on the need for member states to be proactive by activating disaster risk management plans to ensure they are prepared when the need arises for evacuating people and livestock to higher ground.<\/p>\n

Farmers in flood-prone areas were encouraged to plant upland and undertake good land management.<\/p>\n

The experts also warned that heavy rains are often accompanied by outbreaks of crop and livestock pests and diseases.<\/p>\n

In this regard, governments were encouraged to stock up on chemicals and other pesticides as well as to step up efforts to ensure regular dipping of livestock and pest control activities for crops.<\/p>\n

In the regions expected to experience below-normal rainfall in the first half of the agricultural season, farmers were encouraged to plant short-season varieties as there will be a delayed onset of the rain season in these areas.<\/p>\n

The forecast provides relief to southern Africa as the region is still trying to rebuild its food reserves after the occurrence of tropical cyclones, locust outbreaks and the COVID 19 pandemic, which have resulted in adverse impact on agriculture, water resources and hydropower generation.<\/p>\n

In coming up with the outlook for the 2020\/21 season, the climate scientists took into account oceanic and atmospheric factors that influence the climate over the SADC region, including the El Ni\u00f1o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which is currently in its neutral phase.<\/p>\n

ENSO is a naturally occurring phenomenon that involves fluctuating ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

El Ni\u00f1o is a term for the warm phase of the ENSO and is associated with droughts in southern Africa.<\/p>\n

La Ni\u00f1a is the opposite of El Ni\u00f1o and refers to the cooling phase of the same sea surface temperature oscillation. It is associated with wet conditions in southern Africa.<\/p>\n

According to SARCOF-24, the ENSO is projected to evolve into a La Ni\u00f1a phase during the forecast period.<\/p>\n

Other factors considered by the climate experts to come up with this outlook were an increased chance of a negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and a neutral Subtropical Indian Ocean Dipole (SIOD) by the end of the March 2021.<\/p>\n

The IOD is an irregular\u00a0oscillation\u00a0of\u00a0sea surface temperatures\u00a0in which the western\u00a0Indian Ocean\u00a0becomes alternately warmer (positive phase) and then colder (negative phase) than the eastern part of the ocean, while the SIOD is featured by the oscillation of\u00a0sea surface temperatures\u00a0in which the south-west\u00a0Indian Ocean,\u00a0is warmer and then colder than the eastern part of the ocean.<\/p>\n

Local and month-to-month variations are expected to occur and farmers and other users of the SARCOF-24 forecast are advised to contact their national meteorological and hydrological services for interpretation of the outlook.<\/p>\n

The rainfall outlook was prepared by climate scientists from national meteorological and hydrological services from SADC member states as well as experts from the SADC Climate Service Centre.<\/p>\n

The SARCOF-24 meeting was convened under the theme \u201cSustaining Climate Services in the SADC Region during a Pandemic\u201d. sardc.net<\/em><\/strong>
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Southern African News Features offers a reliable source of regional information and analysis on the Southern African Development Community, and is provided as a service to the SADC region. <\/strong><\/p>\r\n

This article may be reproduced with credit to the author and publisher.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<\/span>\r\n\r\n

SANF is produced by the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC), which has monitored regional developments since 1985.      Email: <\/em>sanf@sardc.net<\/em><\/strong>      <\/em><\/p>\r\n

Website and Virtual Library for Southern Africa<\/em>     <\/em>www.sardc.net<\/em><\/strong><\/a>  <\/em>Knowledge for Development<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n\t\t<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SANF 20 no 39 –\u00a0 by Egline Tauya The regional rainfall pattern for the 2020\/21 agricultural season is encouraging as the bulk of southern Africa is expected to receive adequate rainfall throughout the growing season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-southern-african-news-features"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sardc.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sanf__-e1498578789316.png?fit=600%2C590&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4h5b0-2ha","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8754,"href":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8752\/revisions\/8754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}