Bracing For El Niño On All Fronts

A recent weather map shows the drought conditions experienced by most of South Africa, but in the Western Cape it currently is a very different picture of widespread flooding. Forecasts of a shift from a prolonged period of La Niña to El Niño have been making headlines, but a return of cold waters to the southern oceans is not good news for all fisheries sectors or stocks.

The African continent has taken a beating this year. Floods have displaced hundreds and thousands of people in Ivory Coast, Algeria, Ethiopia, Sierre Leone, DR Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Burundi, Cameroon, Malawi, Ghana, Mozambique, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and South Africa since January.

While it is difficult to predict floods, some work is underway to develop warning systems to predict flood events in South Africa. This is articulated in an article written by Justine Pringle of the University of KwaZulu Natal who looks into the problems facing authorities when predicting flood events and developing warning systems.