Normal to below normal rains expected this season

SOUTHERN African countries have been urged to prepare for the worst for the 2017/18 rainfall season, after a regional forecast released over the weekend showed there will be a drought in the first half of the season and floods in the second.

According to an outlook released by the Southern African Development Committee (Sadc), Climate Services Centre (CSC) at a climate forum here, there will be normal to below normal rains from October to November and normal to above normal rains from January to March 2018.

Sadc climate experts said at the meeting that the first phase of below normal to normal rains could result in some countries suffering a devastating drought, while the second phase could see some battling a humanitarian disaster caused by floods due to the normal to above normal rains.

This, according to CSC, calls for careful planning to ensure food security and disaster preparedness in the event of flooding.

The centre's coordinator Dr Nsadisa Faka told delegates at the Southern African Regional Climate Outlook Forum (SARCOF) that the regional outlook needed to be broken down to national level by respective departments of meteorology.

"Generally, the forecast is going to be normal to below normal for the first part of the season," he said. "That is October, November to December and normal to above normal for January, February and March 2018.

"However, the details will be provided by each member State because at the Sadc level we are giving a regional scale."

Dr Faka said users of information which included Government departments and farmers should contact their local meteorology offices for tailored products.

He said the regional model could not capture the local level outlook, but gives a global outlook for planning purposes.

Weather experts from the country will meet this week to consider the regional outlook and include the national factors such as topography and other aspects drawn from experience to come up with the national outlook.

Government has put in place measures to consolidate the resurgent agriculture sector through supporting irrigation projects under the Command Agriculture programme and the Presidential Inputs Support Scheme to ensure food sufficiency.

This is aimed at ensuring that sufficient food is available whether the country receives adequate rains or not.

Dr Faka said the region experienced drought in the 2015/16 season, but a warning had been issued six months prior to commencement of the farming season.

The 2016/17 season forecast showed that the region would have normal to above normal rainfall throughout.

But the 2017/18 season is in two distinct parts, which threaten food security and the hydrological system in some areas, while the second part will see some areas getting above normal rains.

The southern parts of Zimbabwe, including the Matabeleland region will have normal to above normal rains of between 200 and 300mm in the first half of the season.

Good rains are expected throughout the country in January, with the threat of flooding in some areas.

"With the trend of normal to above normal rainfall, we can expect for some areas to receive more rains which can lead to flooding," said Dr Faka. "By knowing this information, the disaster risk management bodies can know which areas are likely to be affected and make contingency plans.

"If there is less rain like we said, the first part of the season, there is a risk of a drought, there is a need to prepare on how they can intervention to help those in need.

"We are still aware of the drought that affected the whole region in 2015/16, but the centre (CSC) predicted that six months before hand."

Good rains this season would also boost Zimbabwe and its northern neighbour Zambia's hopes for improved inflows into Lake Kariba to support optimum power generation.

Currently, power generation is depressed due to controls by the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) to maintain the balance of the lake.

By end of July, the two power plants were generating about 800MW daily using about 82 million cubic metres, which would exhaust the usable storage within 12 months.

"If there are no fresh inflows and generation continues at the current rate (around 800MW), the usable storage would be depleted within 12 months," said ZRA public relations and communications corporate manager Mrs Elizabeth Katonga.

ZRA will be guided by the rainfall forecast at the just ended SARCOF meeting on whether to cut allocations or maintain them at current levels.