AFFECTED—Banana plants
With the country still counting the cost of Tropical Storm Ana and bracing for Cyclone Batsirai in the Northern Region, experts’ verdict is less inspiring: Malawi’s 2021-22 planting season faces an unprecedented rainfall deficit that will be worse than that experienced in 1970.
In a report released Tuesday, Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net), a United States Agency for International Development-funded activity, indicates that, despite registering improvements in rainfall patterns this year, remote sensing data suggest that all three regions are facing near historic cumulative rainfall deficits.
“October 2021 to January 2022 period is reported to be one of the driest periods for the country since 1970, with the Central Region of Malawi experiencing one of the worst droughts on record. Fews Net science partners and other international forecasts indicate rainfall deficits are likely to continue through the remainder of the 2021-22 season, further increasing the risk of a below-average harvest in March and April 2022,” the report reads.
Advertisement
Fews Net’s report paints a gloomy picture of the 2021-22 agriculture season, indicating that, while field assessments were just starting— with many areas still inaccessible— it appears that floods have damaged about 34,000 hectares of cropland mainly in Nsanje, Chikwawa, Mulanje, Phalombe and Machinga districts.
However, Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services acting Director Lucy Mtilatila declined to comment on the prospects of the rainfall season.
She said Southern African Development Community (Sadc) member states would be meeting to come up with regional forecasts but concurred with Fews Net that the season from October last year to January 2022 this year had, indeed, been hot.
Advertisement
“Our analysis indeed shows that this has been the driest season since 1970. It has been very hot. What was happening in the past was that dry spells would be in one region but, this time around, it has been throughout the country.
“We stopped calculating on January 20 [2022] and we have not done so for the remainder of the month but, if it shows we had above-normal rains, it will just be because of [Tropical Storm] Ana,” she said.
Mtilatila said their preliminary analysis shows that the dry spell was caused by abnormal cooling of the Indian Ocean before the rainy season.
In a statement, Sadc Weather Climate says Tropical Cyclone Batsirai was evolving in a favourable environment and is expected to intensify further into intense Tropical Cyclone and hit main Island Mauritius between February 1 and 2 2022 to trigger rains there and in Comoros, Seychelles and Northern Malawi.
Other countries set to receive more rains, according to the Sadc Climate Service, are Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, East Angola, South Africa, Botswana and Zambia.
Mtilatila said the department was monitoring Cyclone Batsirai’s movement but said it would likely have a small indirect impact on Malawi because it is not going to pass over directly, unlike Tropical Storm Ana.
She said, contrary to what has been reported, Ana was not at the level of a cyclone yet but a storm, indicating that it only caused extensive damage because it passed directly over Malawi and covered a wide area, the whole Southern Region.
Mtilatila said, with Ana’s position over Malawi, if it were indeed a cyclone, the impact would have been worse in terms of winds.
Source: Daily times _2/2/22_Jameson Chauluka