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Precursor conditions related to Zimbabwe’s summer droughts

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Abstract

Despite the increasing severity of droughts and their effects on Zimbabwe’s agriculture, there are few tools available for predicting these droughts in advance. Consequently, communities and farmers are more exposed, and policy makers are always ill prepared for such. This study sought to investigate possible cycles and precursor meteorological conditions prior to drought seasons that could be used to predict impending droughts in Zimbabwe. The Single Z-Index was used to identify and grade drought years between 1951 and 2010 according to rainfall severity. Spectral analysis was used to reveal the cycles of droughts for possible use of these cycles for drought prediction. Composite analysis was used to investigate circulation and temperature anomalies associated with severe and extreme drought years. Results indicate that severe droughts are more highly correlated with circulation patterns and embedded weather systems in the Indian Ocean and equatorial Pacific Ocean than any other area. This study identified sea surface temperatures in the average period June to August, geopotential height and wind vector in July to September period, and air temperature in September to November period as precursors that can be used to predict a drought occurrence several months in advance. Therefore, in addition to sea surface temperature, which was identified through previous research for predicting Zimbabwean droughts, the other parameters identified in this study can aid in drought prediction. Drought cycles were established at 20-, 12.5-, 3.2-, and 2.7-year cycles. The spectral peaks, 12.5, 3.2, and 2.7, had a similar timescale with the luni-solar tide, El Niño Southern Oscillation and Quasi Biennial Oscillation, respectively, and hence, occurrence of these phenomena have a possibility of indicating when the next drought might be.

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Acknowledgments

A part of this work originates from the Master of Science (Msc) thesis of the first author. The authors give thanks to the Meteorological Services Department in Zimbabwe for providing the rainfall data and the Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology for the provision of the required facilities for data analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Meteorological Services Department, Zimbabwe and Institute of Atmospheric Physics, University Chinese Academy of Sciences, P. O. Box 9804, Beijing, 100029, People’s Republic of China

    Shingirai Nangombe

  2. Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering, University of Zimbabwe, P. O. Box MP 167, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe

    Simon Madyiwa

  3. College of Atmospheric Physics, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, 219 Ningliu Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

    Jianhong Wang

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  1. Shingirai Nangombe
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  2. Simon Madyiwa
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  3. Jianhong Wang
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Correspondence to Simon Madyiwa.

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Nangombe, S., Madyiwa, S. & Wang, J. Precursor conditions related to Zimbabwe’s summer droughts. Theor Appl Climatol 131, 413–431 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1986-4

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