Good rains, bumper harvest forecast
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Friday January 8, 2021 18:02
Botswana’s rain season runs from October to December and January to March each year.
Yesterday, Deputy Director in the Department of Meteorological Services, Radithupa Radithupa said their analysis of the seasonal rainfall outlook for the period January to March indicates that the country will experience normal to above-normal rainfall.
While Radithupa could not commit to state whether the nation should prepare for floods due to the amount of rainfall forecast, he said a relatively wet season is expected over the entire country compared to the previous season.
“The January-February-March 2021 season will generally be a normal to above rainfall season over most of the country with the north being generally above normal. Overall, a moderately wet season is expected for the months of January to March 2021,” he said.
The chances of La Niña are greater than 95% through January-March 2021, with a 65% chance of continuing through March-May 2021.
According to Radithupa, the northern parts of the country, which includes the eastern Ngamiland, Chobe and northern parts of the Central District, are expected to receive largely normal with a tendency to above-normal rains.
“We normally get dry spells in January especially the first two weeks. However, this is a good year, very wet as witnessed by the recent rains. It has been raining since the New Year and more rains are expected in the next two weeks,” he said.
Radithupa further said January is normally hot and dry, however things are looking good especially for farmers and their crops as the country is experiencing a rather wet and warm January. He stated that apart from the hailstorm incident that occurred in Thamaga last year, it has been intermittent rainfall (Pula ya medupe).
In the recent years, Botswana has experienced droughts caused by dry spells making drought relief part of the national budget.
Amid struggles with the COVID-19 pandemic, the good rains expected could be the only relief and hope to the farming community.
Radithupa also urged farmers to make use of the forecast as a guide to making informed decisions.