Long Rains to Return but Will be Poorly Distributed, Weatherman

The Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) has revised the forecast of good rains by the end of this week which the department said will be poorly distributed across the country until the season ends.

This is contrary to the March-May 2022 weather outlook released last month by the Department, which predicted enhanced rainfall ahead of the planting season.

According to the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) director Stella Aura, the poor rains are a result of low pressure over the southern hemisphere and the high pressure over the northern hemisphere, which has made it unfavorable for the country to receive the rains.

“The spatial and temporal distribution of the rainfall for the remainder of the season is expected to be generally poor over the whole country,” Aura said.

She said in May, the western part of the country is likely to experience enhanced rainfall with near-average rains expected over the central and the southern lowlands while coastal and northeastern regions will get below-average showers.

The latest forecast comes as a blow to farmers who had earlier planted following last month’s showers, before stopping as the seed is unlikely to germinate well. Thie situation will subject farmers to huge losses at a time the prices of fertilizer and seed have skyrocketed.

This means that this year’s crop production will be affected which will, in turn, hurt the country’s economy and its efforts to attain food security.

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The long rains in Kenya are usually expected to start in March and continue until June, and it is the most important period in the farming calendar.

In recent years, the delays in rains have become a norm and this is what we are seeing again now. In other years, the rains come on time and disappear earlier than anticipated. This has led to massive crop failures leading to food shortages, especially in the Northern parts of Kenya.

The changes in Kenya’s rainfall patterns have been linked to climate change as well as global warming. Rainfall is reducing while the temperature is on the increase over time in Kenya. Drought continues to roam in various parts of the country with dams drying up in Kenya’s largest county of Turkana, residents now starring at starvation.

In the long term, the country isn’t doing enough to respond to this changing rainfall pattern. In the 2022/23 budget presented by the Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani, the government allocated 850 million shillings to enhance drought resilience and sustainable livelihood, and 178 million shillings towards ending drought emergencies in Kenya.

Research institutions like the Kenya Agricultural Livestock Research Organization and the International Livestock Research Institution are working hard to come up with drought-tolerant crop varieties.