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File image: Rainfall on the road.
Meteorologist, Azwi Tuwani says persistent rainfalls experienced in South Africa this month are being driven by the La Niña effect.
Earlier, the South African Weather Service (SAWS) issued a warning of severe thunderstorms for Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo.
La Niña is when too much rainfall is experienced for that season.
Tuwani says, “It has to do with many factors, the first one is the La Niña effect still driving so much rain producing systems into South Africa and it is not out of the norm for Gauteng and the interior to receive rainfall in April, it is just that normally we don’t receive as much.”
He adds, “So this is where maybe we can look at the attribution studies with or what the scientists are doing and see if climate change is also playing its role into bringing us lots and lots of rain out of the normal. Here again if you look at it you will also see that the rains started way late than they normally do this time around, cause the rains started in December but normally we expect our rains from September, so this could be just a lag in the season.
Tuwani also adds that central parts of the country generally do not have much rain during this period.
“We would say around this time it is where we start to harvest our maize crops that we planted during the start of the rainy season, September, October, November, going into December and we always harvest when it is dry because we need to expose it to the sun, now still having continues rainfall, which leads to a drive which is a La Niña, meaning that it brings a lot of rainfall or it turns the Southern Hemisphere or southern Africa wet and that is still continuing though La Niña.”
He says the rainfall will subside as the country enters winter.
Western Cape
Tuwane says, “Something that really says ok, but what is really happening is Western Cape, it’s been flooded yesterday in April because when we look at the rainfall season for Western Cape its between May to September and when we expect lots and lots of rainfall is between June and July, so now this is where we need to look at our attribution studies and say is climate change playing a role or is it still just La Niña, but it’s a week La Niña for now because its moving towards.”
He adds that the rainfall could start to increase in the Western Cape, with winter rainfall being lesser in other provinces.
PODCAST: Interview with Meteorologist, Azwi Tuwani on SA rainfall.
