• The depressed rains are likely caused by the La Nina phenomenon.
• The prediction was announced by the head of the Kenya Meteorological Department Dr David Gikungu.
Image: ICPAC
Eastern half of Kenya will have below-average rains from October to December.
This means these areas could potentially experience drought.
However, Western and all areas along the Uganda and South Sudan border, could receive above-normal rains.
This forecast was provided by the Igad Climate Prediction and Applications Centre, whose scientists have been meeting in Nairobi since Monday.
The forecast covers 11 countries in eastern Africa.
The prediction was announced by Kenya Meteorological Department boss David Gikungu.
He said Met will next week announce a more detailed forecast for the country and some aspects may differ from the Icpac forecast.
“After today, all member states will sit with their forecasting teams and downscale the forecasts. Much as what I read is accurate, it represents the entire region. There will be some differences when you downscale. We will announce the forecast for Kenya next week. It will be downscaled further to the counties for Kenya,” Gikungu said.
He said the depressed rains forecast should still be treated as an early warning sign because it means some parts of the horn of Africa may have drought.
“We are in August and we are talking of October to December. We have played our role we have played our part,” Gikungu said.
He said the Western half of Kenya will have a normal onset, usually at the beginning of October, while the depressed rains in eastern Kenya will come late.
Gikungu said temperatures will be above normal in October-December in most parts of the country.
However, Western Kenya may have cooler weather.
The depressed rains are likely caused by the La Nina phenomenon.
In June, the World Meteorological Organisation announced that the El Niño event, which brought heavy rains in Kenya, was likely to be replaced by La Niña conditions later this year.
La Niña’s impact around the world varies widely by geographic location. For Kenya, it causes dry conditions during the short rainy season from October.
It was largely blamed for the multi-year drought that hit Kenya between 2020 to 2023.
WMO said probability of a La Niña is growing rapidly.
But WMO cautioned it may not necessarily lead to drought in East Africa.
It said the effects of each La Niña event depends on the intensity, duration, time of year when it develops and the interaction with other modes of climate variability.
The East Africa’s weather is also influenced by the Indian Ocean Dipole, which can cause heavy rains or dry weather.
"La Niña conditions generally follow strong El Niño events and this is in line with recent model predictions, although high uncertainty remains regarding its strength or duration,” said Ko Barrett, WMO deputy secretary.
Image: File
La Niña refers to the large-scale cooling of the ocean surface temperatures in central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.
Separately, Food Security and Nutrition Working Group said the recent seasons of above-average rains in 2023 and early 2024 will likely help to buffer the impacts of the expected below-average short rains to some degree through late 2024.
"However, given the erosion of coping capacity from prior and current shocks, crop and livestock production losses will most likely lead to elevated levels of acute food insecurity and malnutrition by early 2025," FSNWG said.
If a second consecutive poor rainy season materialises in early 2025, then this would likely lead to a rapid worsening of acute food security, nutrition and health outcomes through late 2025.
In such a situation, the next potential window of recovery will not occur until the late October - December 2025 rains.