Thursday, 4th September 2025
by inAfrika Reporter
The Greater Horn’s most important rainfall season for the equatorial belt—October to December (OND)—is arriving with an uncomfortable forecast. The IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) projects below-normal rains across wide areas, coupled with warmer-than-usual temperatures, a combination that can quickly stretch water utilities, hydropower dispatch, rangelands and smallholder planting plans. The signal isn’t universal—there are pockets with a wetter tilt in parts of South Sudan and Uganda—but the weight of the map leans dry across eastern Kenya, southern Ethiopia, Somalia and parts of central and southern Tanzania. In a region where OND can contribute up to 70% of annual totals for some zones, that’s a planning alert, not a curiosity.
Seasonal outlooks are probabilistic, not prophetic, yet they remain the cheapest insurance a government or business can buy when paired with national meteorological guidance. ICPAC’s late-August release is explicit about the risk pattern and the temperature anomaly that can amplify evapotranspiration and strain rivers faster than headline rainfall deficits suggest. For Tanzania’s water managers, that translates into an immediate need to review reservoir operation rules and to publish chlorination and rationing triggers before November, not during a crunch. For the power sector, hydro-heavy utilities should dust off contingency blends that bring thermal and IPP capacity into play early if inflows lag, while communicating the logic to customers who have long memories of dry-season outages.
Agriculture remains the other pressure point. Extension services can still shape outcomes in September by nudging seed choices toward drought-tolerant varieties where appropriate, adjusting top-dressing schedules to match expected moisture windows, and encouraging small-scale water harvesting in districts that typically ride OND for bean and maize performance. Pastoral counties and districts should pre-position fodder and synchronise vaccination drives along migration corridors to reduce losses if pasture lags. None of these moves are dramatic; all are less costly than emergency trucking in December.
Finance and city halls also have work to do. Ministries of finance can quietly clear duty or VAT bottlenecks for essential inputs—rapid test kits and fluids for diarrhoeal spikes, pipes and fittings for leak reduction, chlorine and treatment chemicals—so procurement teams aren’t stranded when orders should be moving. Urban authorities should refresh their communication playbooks with plain language and pre-agreed SMS templates that tell families where to find water, not just why to conserve it. The public responds faster to specificity than to slogans.
For businesses, the upside of acting on a pessimistic seasonal signal is resilience even if the worst doesn’t materialise. Manufacturers reliant on steady water should protect inventory and maintenance schedules early; retailers should expect more price sensitivity on staples if rains under-deliver. The communications advantage rests with those who speak plainly now and keep data flowing as OND evolves. ICPAC has done its part by putting a clear, verifiable map on the table; the next step is national forecasters and sector agencies translating that into domestic instructions people can use. The rains will write the final story. But whether the season becomes a crisis or an inconvenience depends on how quickly planners move from forecast PDFs to practical steps in September
Portuguese 
English 
Swahili 
French 
Chinese