Madagascar, Mozambique, Malawi and neighbouring countries suffered severe flooding after a series of tropical storms, including three cyclones, hit the region, starting with storms Ana and Batsirai in January and February 2022.
Southern Madagascar (the Grand Sud) is facing a deteriorating food security crisis, exacerbated by exceptionally low levels of rainfall over the last two years. In an area with 90% of the population living below the poverty line, this recent drought has contributed to tens of thousands facing severe famine-like conditions.
The scientists with the WWA studied the effect of climate change on the lack of rainfall leading to the Cape Town Drought and found that it made the event about three times more likely.
Devastating seasonal rains in Kenya have been reported to have displaced nearly 300,000 people and killed 158. Other countries in the region such as Rwanda and Somalia have also been seriously affected.
A quickly deteriorating food security outlook in Somalia triggered international humanitarian appeals in 2016. In this analysis we investigate the roles of climate change and El Niño in the observed very low precipitation using both climate models and observational data.