Dry season in store for SA as El Niño looms, warn experts

A group of climate change experts, led by the Extreme Climate Events Research Alliance, held the El Niño 2023 Summit at the University of Pretoria on Monday.

The summit seeks to share information about the potential implications on agriculture, food security and associated economic impacts.

The summit also comes as the latest monthly Seasonal Climate Watch by the South African Weather Service, shows that El Niño is currently in a neutral state and likely to move into a weak El Niño state during the late winter and early spring seasons.

"The multi-model rainfall forecast indicates above-normal rainfall for most of the country during winter (Jun-Jul-Aug) through to early spring (Aug-Sep-Oct). This is still only relevant for the southwestern parts of the country during winter but also relevant for the eastern coastal areas during spring. Minimum and maximum temperatures are expected to be primarily above-normal countrywide for the forecast period.

“The South African Weather Service (SAWS) will continue to monitor the weather and climate conditions and provide updates on any future assessments that may provide more clarity on the current expectations for the coming season," said the weather service.

Dr Mokhele Moeletsi, from Agricultural Research Council, told the summit that South Africa is slowly shifting to dryer conditions.

"We looked at the 24 months Standardized Precipitation Index starting from 2021 -2023. It was mostly La Niña, and we obtained more wet than normal rainfall, but if we factor in and take only January to March, we can see that we are slowly shifting towards drier conditions which is an indication of the onset of El Niño.

“We also correlated the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) with cumulative rainfall from October to March, which shows a positive correlation implying that during El Niño years, we turn to have dry seasons, and also during La Niña years, we turn to have wet seasons.

“But in the winter rainfall regions, we are not getting a good signal in terms of the correlations," says Moeletsi.

SAWS scientist in long-range forecasting Christien Engelbrecht warned that the  2015/16 data shows that the impact can be very severe.

"It is not only the total amount of rainfall which generally shows drier than normal conditions in El Niño and wetter than normal conditions in La Niña, but it is also things like the distribution of rain where those droughts occur, where those heat waves occur and the period of rainfall also varies.

So it is a noisy messy story, but we can see that in 2015/16, the impact can be really severe, so we have to take cognisance of what could happen without knowing what will happen," says Engelbrecht.

Meanwhile, the National Disaster Management Center's Dechlan Pillay says the government is ready to respond.

"SA region is highly impacted by weather-related hazards on a seasonal basis with flooding, fires, snow and windstorms having yearly presence in terms of disaster management efforts.

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is responsible for approximately 30% of the rainfall variability in Southern Africa and the National Disaster Management Center has had a specific on monitoring ENSO conditions in the last decade.

“A slow-onset disaster like drought has a longer, wider and deeper financial and socio-economic impact as compared to seasonal quick-onset disaster duration," says Pillay.

He says funds for immediate relief will be provided to affected sectors through provincial and municipal disaster grants.

"Designed for the rapid release of funds and are intended to fund amongst other items: emergency repairs, humanitarian relief, such as temporary shelter and food as well as essential services.

“Applicable during the first three months following a declared disaster.

“Once the immediate impacts are completed, funds are allocated for disaster reconstruction ad rehabilitation through the budget process for the repair and replacement of assets and infrastructure damaged by declared disasters.”

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