The Sunday Mail
Harmony Agere
Such a feisty El Nino, he tells, was last recorded in 1997 when it devastated crop yields and killed livestock.
Zimbabwe should be on high alert and brace for extreme weather patterns, apart from high temperatures being experienced in the country, as it is going through the worst El nino event in 18 years, the Meteorological Services Department has warned.
Forecaster Mr John Mupuro says the likelihood of the El Nino phenomenon is now greater than 90 percent through the Southern Hemisphere summer and is near 85 percent through to April in 2016.
Such a feisty El Nino, he tells, was last recorded in 1997 when it devastated crop yields and killed livestock.
As such, the Met Department says there is a 67 percent chance of drought in Zimbabwe with the little rain that may come expected to last until February 2016.
That is not all. There could be strong winds, flash flooding over a short period and hail storms. This time around, El Nino is bigger and “badder”.
El Nino is a phenomenon caused by the Pacific Ocean warming and is wreaking havoc across the East and Southern African region.
Its causes are little understood but global warming has been the immediate scapegoat as world temperatures have gone beyond 2 degrees Celsius.
Botswana, Malawi and South Africa have reportedly already declared drought in their countries with reports saying South Africa was recently hit by hailstorms as big as a golf balls. The Chronicle reported that two pupils in Plumtree were killed by hailstorms last week.
Scientists concur that Zimbabwe should take precautions as other countries in the region have already done.
“The last time such an El Nino was experienced was in 1997 and this is severe and not only affecting Zimbabwe but the rest of Africa and other parts of the world,” says Mr Mupuro.
“There is a greater than 90 percent chance that El Nino will continue through the Southern Hemisphere summer 2015-16, and around an 85 percent chance it will last into April 2016.”
Explaining the characteristics of El Nino, Mr Mupuro says if oceanic temperatures rise in the Coast of Chile, the air on top of the ocean becomes warm and less dense causing it to rise.
For the atmosphere to maintain a balance, he says, the cooler air is forced down, creating some sort of a ceiling of cool air across the Atlantic in Central Africa.
The ceiling, he explains, disrupts cloud development thereby causing low rainfall in Central and Southern Africa.
While the record-breaking El Nino is expected to subside in May next year, experts fear this could cause another dry season.
The other possibility, experts say, is that the El Nino may degenerate in what is known as La Nina, the cooler counterpart of El Nino which causes the opposite climatic variations.
Another thing which is worrying weather scientist is that the El Nino appears to have confused indigenous knowledge systems as bumper rains have been predicted in most provinces using that system.
Farmers are, therefore, advised to rely on scientific evidence at the moment.
Experts have also challenged the Met Department to use technologies that predict future climatic patterns saying this increases the country’s disaster preparedness.
The department says it has adopted numerical weather prediction models for operational forecasting.
An official, Mr Shingirai Nangombe, says following acquisition of a technology called HPC, the system can now be used to predict what may happen in years to come.
He indicates that the Met Department will be using the same technology to analyse data.
Efforts to get a comment from Civil Protection Unit on its preparedness to deal with disasters were fruitless as its deputy director, Ms Sibusisiwe Ndlovu, who requested written questions, had not responded by the time of going to print.
Cloud seeding to start ‘soon’
Extra Reporter
The Meteorological Services Department will begin cloud seeding this week to mitigate the effects of climate change in light of below-normal rainfall forecast for the 2015/16 summer cropping season.
In its seasonal outlook, the department said there was need to enhance rainfall this season through intensifying the national cloud seeding programme but no concrete progress had been made so far.
Government recently cleared the MSD to tender for contractors to begin cloud seeding.
In a media briefing last week, Mr Tich Zinyemba said, “We had been waiting for Government approval and we now have it. So we are now sorting out contract issues and as soon as that is finalised we will begin.
“I cannot be certain when we will be starting exactly but it could be next week, it all depends with the progress we make in the tendering process.”
The department had previously stated its desire to start cloud seeding mid-November.
However, there is an equipment headache as the MSD needs at least two aircraft to cover the whole country.
There has been a suggestion that farmers be levied to raise the funds.
According to climate scientists, Zimbabwe is almost certain to be hit by drought as the El Nino event has reduced the possibility of having normal rainfall to only 33 percent.
Some countries in the region have already declared a drought.
