The Twenty First Annual Southern Africa Regional Climate Outlook Forum

The Twenty First Annual Southern Africa Regional Climate Outlook Forum (SARCOF-21) was held in Gaborone, Botswana 23 to 25 August 2017 to present a consensus outlook for the 2017/2018 rainfall season over the SADC region. Climate scientists from the SADC National Meteorological and/or Hydrological Services (NMHSs), the SADC Climate Services Centre (CSC) formulated this Outlook.

Additional inputs were acquired from other global climate prediction centres namely, European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Beijing Climate Center (BCC), Météo-France and Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (BoM), Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), Korea Meteorological Agency, Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and UK Met Office. This Outlook covers the major rainfall season from October 2017 to March 2018.

Outlook Summary

The bulk of Southern African Development Community (SADC) is likely to receive normal to below-normal rainfall for most of the period October to December (OND) 2017 and normal to above-normal rainfall for the January to March (JFM) 2018. However, northernmost Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), northern Tanzania, the islands states, eastern-most Madagascar and the south-eastern contiguous SADC region are likely to receive normal to above-normal rainfall throughout the 2017/18 rainy season.

The outlook up to January 2018 is shown below, the complete outlook is included in the climate outlook statement link below.

Climate Outlook for 2017 Oct, Nov, Dec	Climate outlook for 2017 Nov, Dec, Jan

Statement from the Climate Outlook Forum

 Link to the complete climate outlook forum statement document