Opening avenues to overcome information limits in seasonal forecasting

Abstract

As a water-stressed country with a large agricultural sector, South Africa has a long history of seasonal weather forecasting. Likewise, the southern African region with its strong reliance on rain-fed agriculture, has long looked to seasonal forecasts to avoid agricultural losses and food security crises that have periodically hit the region in the form of droughts and damaging floods. As other human systems such as urban water supplies become increasingly stress ed, the need for information about the next month to several months’ climate has become greater an d more prominent. The 2015/2016 El Niño-related drought has once again highlighted the sensitivity of the region and the potential for seasonal forecasting to contribute to minimising impacts by allowing forward planning. Rationale Seasonal forecasts for southern Africa have for many years been provided by national, regional and international efforts and have usually been presented as large-scale maps associated with some measure of probabilities.

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