La Niña might not break South Africa’s severe drought

FORECASTERS are unable to predict the weather conditions of the coming season, as patterns have changed and the atmosphere remained challenged by the movements of the world’s oceans.

The forecasters said yesterday that all signs leaned towards a La Niña phenomenon and explained that if it came, it would bring very little, if any, relief to the effects of the 2015/16 drought.

“We are looking at the possibility of a weak La Niña, the effects of which would not be felt at all,” said South African Weather Service senior research manager Dr Nhlonipho Nhlabatsi.

He said rains could come much later in the year, leaving farmers with a very short plant- ing time and unable to the expected worthwhile quotas at harvest time.

“This also increases the likelihood of limited funding due to high-risk projections,” he said.

Nhlabatsi was speaking at a media briefing on the seasonal climate outlook, where he explained the difficulty in predicting the summer season with any accuracy.

He said the worst-case scen- ario of the summer was the continuation of the drought. “That, or very heavy rains. They are both disasters we can do without,” he said, adding that all indications pointed to a weak La Niña. The country is still reeling from the drought which has left some farmers bankrupt and others on the brink, with livestock dying and crops drying up.

The drought started in 2014. Dams dried up, there was a threat to food security, and the country was forced to import maize and beef, among other products.

El Niño is the warming up of the atmosphere, which results in severe weather patterns, while La Niña is its opposite.

But the country was in a neutral phase. “This is a very critical situation,” seasonal forecaster Dr Asmerom Beraki said. “It is not a given that when a country has gone through an El Niño, it will then experience a La Niña.”

The La Niña was not well defined. “If that comes we will not have sufficient rains, and therefore no means to get over the effects of the past drought,” Beraki said.

“There are many climate drivers which determine the weather and we need to keep focused on them,” he said.