Early signs point to good rains
Baboki Kayawe | Thursday August 24, 2017 16:52
Yesterday, former Meteorological Services director, Thabang Botshoma said there were indicators that all areas that experienced poor rains in the last season will have good rains. Botshoma was speaking at the ongoing 2017/2018 Southern Africa Regional Climate Outlook Forum (SARCOF), an annual meeting in which the Southern African Development Community (SADC) climate scientists hammer out the forecast of the next rain season. The rain season in Botswana generally runs from October to March.
“The SADC region moved from one extremely dry season to a wet season in the period 2016/2017, though the eastern part of the region had below normal rains,” Botshoma said.
“Parts of Western Cape in South Africa are still experiencing droughts.” Head of the Resilience Hub at the Food and Agriculture Organisation, Lewis Hove stressed that the information SARCOF comes up with, should help farmers in terms of their preparedness and resilience against threats.
“About 70% of the SADC population depends on agriculture for food security and the outcomes of this Forum must be tailor-made to the needs of the farmers so they can use the information to plan better,” he said. Hove further said given the current weather extremes coming one after the other, farmers could be confused and as such, there was need to provide them with adequate, accurate information on a timely basis. A senior programmes officer from SADC, Phera Ramoeli said since coordinated seasonal forecasts began in the region about 20 years ago through SARCOF, significant progress has been achieved in applying climate information and prediction services for socio-economic development.
“The presence of participants from the many socio-economic sectors is ample evidence. In this respect, I am pleased to note that SADC national meteorological and hydrological services and other partners have been playing a leading role in providing these useful climate services,” he said.
SARCOF is a culmination of an “intense” eight-day SADC national Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS’s) Climate Experts meeting intended to carry out the necessary scientific work that will result in generating seasonal climate outlooks for all regional states.