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Ethiopian meteorologists visit Weather Impact

Published on 2 May 2018 by Saskia van Pelt

Last week three meteorologists from the Ethiopian National Meteorological Agency (NMA) visited The Netherlands for the G4AW CommonSense project. In this project, smallholder farmers in Ethiopia are provided with information services, such as weather forecasts, to help them make better informed decisions on farming activities. As mobile internet and smartphones are not widespread across the rural Ethiopian population, they receive a daily weather forecast by SMS.

22 march 2018: Weather Information Services for successful local agriculture in Africa

Published on 23 March 2018 by Saskia van Pelt

Food security for Africa is an urgent global challenge. The main cause of food insecurity is inadequate food production. New weather services are key to produce food more efficiently and of higher quality. On March 22^nd 2018 Weather Impact hosted a seminar to join leading experts from the fields of meteorology, hydrology and African agriculture. The seminar, named “Weather-information services for successful local agriculture in Africa” gave a platform to professionals at the forefront of science and practise. They addressed crucial opportunities and challenges of achieving successful local agriculture in African countries. In the “open space” workshop that followed to the plenary speakers, we discussed practical challenges, opportunities and solutions to improve local agricultural productivity in African countries. Due to the large variety in the expertises of the participants and their active contributions we are looking back to a very succesful day. The results of the discussions will be summarized and will become available via the seminar web-page. Read more ›

Two successful G4AW projects proposals

Published on 1 March 2018 by Saskia van Pelt

Weather Impact celebrates to be part of two successful project consortia in the third call of the Geodata for Agriculture and Water (G4AW) Facility. The Netherlands Space Office announced in February to have selected six project out of 27 proposals being submitted. The G4AW programme aims to improve food security in developing countries by using satellite data and geo-information. The facility is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Swahili, Xhosa or Amharic weather forecasts

Published on 6 February 2018 by Saskia van Pelt

For a language lover, Africa is the continent to travel. Language barriers do often not coincide with country borders and the variety is huge. Ethiopia knows 80 different languages, the click consonants in the Khoisan languages in Southern Africa are world famous and Swahili is spoken in 9 different African countries.

2017: Weather Extremes and Record Losses

Published on 18 January 2018 by Saskia van Pelt

The year 2017 was the second warmest year since the start of measurements around 1880, and the warmest year without El Niño effect. Losses caused by extreme weather events broke all records. The overall losses due to natural catastrophes were estimated to be $330bn, of which $267bn (81%) was caused by meteorological catastrophies.

Focus on African agriculture in 2018

Published on 3 January 2018 by Saskia van Pelt

The new year prospects for new chances in African small-scale agribusiness. The Weather Impact team celebrated the end of the year 2017 in Ethiopia. Together with Wageningen Environmental Research, a workshop on agro-meteo services for small-scale Ethiopian farmers was organised. We came together with 20 Ethiopian meteorological and agronomical experts, to discuss the best methods and partnerships for a reliable and financially sustainable service in Ethiopia. It was decided that the mobile text message with a localized weather forecast, provided in 3 indigenous languages, will be continued in 2018 with at least a doubled number of users.

Suitability-maps for Oil Palm cultivation in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Published on 14 December 2017 by Saskia van Pelt

Weather Impact is doing an assessment of the climate of the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Goal of the assessment is to analyse the suitability of the area to cultivate Oil Palm (Elaeis Guineensis). Oil palm is a humid, tropical crop; it thrives best in areas with minimum temperatures above 20°C and an annual rainfall of more than 1800 mm, preferably equally spread over the year. The Congo Basin one of the three largest convective rainfall regions on the planet, under researched because of a severe lack of meteorological observations over the basin. Nevertheless, with support of satellite data and reanalysis datasets it is possible to get a view on local climate and its variability over time. Based on our data, value-adding maps are developed to inform about the suitability of certain areas to cultivate Oil Palm.

Weather forecasts for sesame farmers in Ethiopia

Published on 27 November 2017 by Saskia van Pelt

One of the main problems for Ethiopian sesame farmers is a general lack of reliable weather forecasts. The lack of forecasting information becomes more and more challenging for the sesame farmers as the variability in weather increases, which results in an unpredictable and highly variable sesame yield. To address this challenge, Weather Impact provides local weather forecasts in two local languages direct to the sesame farmers. This activity is part of the CommonSense project, and to be able to send the weather forecasts, we work closely together with the Benefit-Sesame Business Network (SBN), Apposit and the Ethiopian National Meteorology Agency (NMA). In a pilot study, 1500 farmers received a weather forecast by SMS twice a week. With the help of our weather information, sesame farmers and agricultural professionals are able to strengthen their resilience to weather variability.

La Niña 2017: what are the impacts on East African weather?

Published on 26 October 2017 by Saskia van Pelt

For agricultural practices it is very convenient to be able to anticipate on the coming seasons’ weather. Especially in Africa, where most of agriculture is rain-fed, it is very helpful to know in advance if it will be a relatively wet or dry season, so farmers can choose the optimal crop or variety. Forecasting the weather on seasonal timescales is more difficult than forecasting the next few days. One of the reasons for this is that seasonal patterns depend on the status of the global climate system, including the oceans. An example of a well-known seasonal pattern is the El Niño phenomenon. El Niño is an event of unusual warming of the Equatorial Eastern Pacific Ocean in December and it has effects on the weather around the globe, especially on rainfall patterns in the tropics. El Niño is the warm phase of a larger phenomenon called the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The opposite of El Niño is called a La Niña, which describes a cooling in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean.

CCCA initiative

Published on 15 September 2017 by Saskia van Pelt

The Netherlands Consortium on Climate Change Adaptation is a broad coalition of Dutch knowledge centres, dedicated to providing multisectoral, integrated, practical knowledge and expertise on climate change adaptation. Take a look at the website of this initiative, or read the article in Volkskrant (Dutch). Weather Impact is associated partner in the CCCA initiative.