Wet and dry seasons in west africa

The main characteristics of the west african seasons have been known to the. Characteristics of wet and dry spells in the west african. In general what happens in the wilderness areas of africa is that with the dry season much of the. An alternative subdivision recognizes savanna woodland, with trees and shrubs forming a light canopy. To investigate the behavior of wam in the context of wet and dry years, the four seasons were used to.

This is pushing the high pressure area toward places like north africa, argentina and south africa, hence the dry summer. Climate, climate change, the dry and wet seasons in west africa 2 on february 27, 20 12. The west of the country becomes rainy but showers occur after noon with sunny half of a day before. Pdf presents observations on entropy and wind over west africa during the monsoon seasons of 1958 and 1960. This paper presents an evaluation of the weather research and forecasting wrf model in simulating wet and dry west african monsoon. What is the weather, climate and geography like in guinea. Near these latitudes, there is one wet season and one dry season annually. The tropical wet and dry climate is part of the climate classification system that groups climates based on vegetation. Vegetation, wildlife and human life are quite different from monsoon. At the gulf of guinea, precipitation is abundant yearround without a marked dry season. The sahara cycles between dry and wet climate every 20,000. Between december and february no rain will fall at all.

Occurs in regions to dry for forests and to dry for desserts. Its almost poetical in nature, showing how the desert breathes through its long cycles. The rainy season occurs between april and october in the south while in the. Villagers pass a submerged rice paddy during a monsoon in nischintapur, bangladesh. Its highlands receive more rainfall than the lowlands, while the saharan regions receive the. The term green season is also sometimes used as a euphemism by tourist authorities. Pdf dynamics of wet and dry years in west africa researchgate. This means that the other side subtropical high is really dry. Aboriginal people of this region recognise more than just two seasons.

Tropical wet and dry climate is mainly found within the tropics. The onset of the wet and dry seasons in east central. The wet season refers to the rains and many areas are closed to travel during the rains due to inaccessibility. As a result of these interacting air masses, west africas precipitation regime is characterized by latitudinal belts of decreasing rainfall and wet season length. There are actually two very different seasons in a savanna. Climate, climate change, the dry and wet seasons in west. In some parts of africa, there are two known seasons. We used an ensemble of 25 regional simulations forced by a total of ten gcms, with a. African safari guide africa rainy season safari seasons. Situated in the southern hemisphere, christmas in south africa is a sunny, beachbound affair. On the other hand, rouault and richard 2005 documented an increase in the spatial extent of drought over southern africa since the 1970s, attributing this to a strengthening of the. It is located between 5 and 25 degrees latitude, in central. The wet during the summer and the dry during the winter. The tropical climate is characterized by a wet season and a dry season.

Simulation of wet and dry west african monsoon rainfall seasons. Guinea is one of the wettest countries in west africa. Like the general savanna biome, the african savanna biome also has a wet and a dry season. During the dry seasons plant life and animal life suffers, but as the rainy season begins life flourishes in this area. The local climate is coastalguinean with four seasons including a long dry season between november and march which is the hottest of the year. Dry has the most visitors, and the lodgescamps get booked up rather quickly. Rainfall over the african continent from the 19th through. Anomalously wet and dry rainy seasons in equatorial east. West africa generally, the dry season runs from november to april in west african countries like ghana and senegal. Climate, climate change, the dry and wet seasons in west africa 2. A delay in the wet season over west africa and the sahel of over 510 days on average, and later onset of the wet season over southern africa, is identified and associated with increasing strength of the saharan heat low in late boreal summer and a northward shift in the position of the tropical rain belt over augustdecember. Later wet seasons with more intense rainfall over africa.

Dust deposited on the coasts of west africa during the last 240,000 years reveals that the sahara the largest desert in the world has oscillated between humid and dry climates every 20,000 years or so. The climate is tropical and humid with a wet and a dry season. Here, we present observations on entropy and wind over west africa during the monsoon seasons of 1958 and. The seasons are called the wet season and the dry season. A savanna climate, with marked wet and dry seasons, prevails in the north and west, while a steppe climate with little precipitation is found in the far north. It goes north in summer as the continents are getting hotter. Green has less visitors and more availability at lodgescamps though a number of the seasonal camps are closed aprmay and maybe nov. Tropical countries has only 2 seasons, the wet and dry. Toward the north, conditions are more distinctly monsoonal. Differences between anomalously wet and dry rainy seasons over the period 19612001 in equatorial east africa kenya, northern tanzania are studied at local scale using a 53 raingauge network and analysing six intraseasonal characteristics iscs. At december hot tropical summer comes to the republic of south africa.

The dry season with a northeasterly harmattan lasts from december to may. The wet season the wet season is typically considered to begin in the. In wet savannas the dry season typically lasts 3 to 5 months, in dry savannas 5 to 7 months, and in thornbush savannas it is even longer. Dynamics of wet and dry years in west africa american.

A monsoon is a seasonal change in the direction of the prevailing, or strongest, winds of a region. Data shows that in africa the start of the dry season coincides with a rise in the cases of. It stirs the interest of the young ones to fascinating facts and moral. In the dry season only an average of about 4 inches of rain falls. Hot, dry continental air masses originating from the high pressure system above the sahara desert give rise to dusty harmattan winds over most of west africa from november to february. The location of the region of west africa, relatively close to the equator, dictates that the dynamics of a monsoon over that region are relatively sensitive to interannual fluctuations in the meridional gradient of boundarylayer entropy. Information about the dry and rainy seasons in africa, including a brief overview of the. Its highlands receive more rainfall than the lowlands, while the. Rainfall picks up in may, starting the wet season, and ends in december. In this paper, we propose a characterization of the main features of wet and dry spells and their space. At the equator there are two wet and two dry seasons, as the rain belt passes over twice a year, once moving north and once moving south. The changing of the tropical easterlies coming from the north atlantic versus those coming from the south atlantic determines when areas along the west coast of africa receive large amounts of rain and experience a dry season.

Nigeria has a tropical climate with variable rainy and dry seasons, depending on location. Monsoons cause wet and dry seasons throughout much of the tropics. Dry season determinants of malaria disease and net use in. Oddly enough, it is actually a little cooler during this dry season. But even then, its nowhere as low as winter temperatures in europe. The first, is the hot, dry tropical continental air mass of the northern high pressure system, which gives rise to the dry, dusty, harmattan winds which blow from the sahara over most of west africa from november to february. Furthermore, if youre a bit low on the budget, youll be happy to learn that this time of the year, tickets and hotel rooms are cheaper than ever. During the dry season, there is hardly any rainfall at all, between the months of december and march. The monsoon circulation occurs in parts of africa, asia, northern australia and arguably in the north america desert southwest debatable because it lacks a true seasonal flow reversal. In summer, moist equatorial air masses originating over the atlantic ocean bring annual monsoon rains nicholson, 20.

This study was carried out in the okt health administrative region in southern benin on the atlantic coast following the nationwide distribution of llins to children of under 5 years of age by the nmcp. West africa has both wet and dry seasons due to being at the intersection of two large air masses. Although humidity is high throughout the year especially on the coast, there are less mosquitoes during the dry season and unpaved roads are also in the best condition. Figure 4 is a climograph for the city of douala, which is located on the west coast of africa in cameroon. Climate types for kids tropical wet and dry climate. Kawan ng cordero is the only biblebased kiddie show on television. Yes, there is a wet and dry season in the savanna biome. Includes the north american prairies, the steppes of eurasia, the plains of eastern and southern africa, and the pampas of south america. The first, is the hot, dry tropical continental air.

March heralds the start of the wet season in east africa, and its also still wet season in southern and central africa. Over west africa, very few analyses of wet and dry spell features were realized, focusing essentially on dry spells and based on local in situ observations sivakumar, 1992. Their seasonal calendar plays a very important role in traditional life. The rainy season occurs between april and october in the south while in the north, the start of the rainy season is delayed till. Also, there is no distinct rainy season like in monsoon climate. The monsoon season with a southwesterly wind lasts from june to november. The dry, which is controlled by northeast winds, lasts from november to early march. Average daytime temperature is in the range between 26 c 79 f in cape town and 28 c 82 f in pretoria and durban. While the general onset of the wet and dry seasons is known by most, a quantitative determination has not been previously accomplished for east central florida. Monsoonal climate seasons in the top end of the northern territory are generally known as the wet and the dry. Others have scorching hot summers and windy, wet winters. One of them is the sea equatorial air, which in the summer brings wet winds from the coast, and then a low pressure zone appears over the desert, and the other is a continental tropical one, and it is transported from the sahara by a dusty dry wind of the. Miami, for example, receives only about 26 percent of its average annual rain in a sixmonth period from november through april.

Sun and causes the areas it crosses to have alternating wet and dry seasons. Savanna climate or tropical wet and dry climate or sudan climate this type of climate has alternate wet and dry seasons similar to monsoon climate but has considerably less annual rainfall. The wet months offer lots of sunshine, and the rains are generally heavy but short. Floridas dry season is arriving, bringing a breath of. Kruger 2006 found an increase in extreme wet seasons and extreme dry seasons over parts of south africa, as well as an increase in high daily rainfall totals. The country is quite dry, with rainfall averages at around 464mm or less. This climate is caused by changing wind and ocean currents. In wa west africa, the novapr period is known as the dry season, while humidity levels are still high. There are two main seasons the rainy season and the dry season. Every year, the rainfilled monsoon winds cause the nearby bangali river to overflow its banks. The climate of nigeria has two distinct seasons, which form the main types of air masses. Between the tropics and the equator, locations may experience a short wet and a long wet season. At higher latitudes, precipitation decreases and is limited to a wet season.

The climate of nigeria, in west africa on the gulf of guinea, is tropical,and it tends to be hot all yearround. The most important consequence of this shifting is the annual alteration of. The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The wet season in nigeria is from april to october and falls upon the southern region much earlier than the rest of the country, typically around february or march. Areas with wet seasons are dispersed across portions of the tropics and subtropics under the koppen climate classification, for. This duality of seasons is similar to the monsoon or wetdry climates that other regions of the world experience. A brief overview of africas dry and rainy seasons tripsavvy. Hence, the length of the dry season, though vari uses t able, is generally longer than that of the wet season. It is hot and wet most of the year in the southeast but dry in the southwest and farther inland. Land in this area receives direct sunlight throughout most of the year. In north africa, the temps start to climb as the summer season takes hold with soaring temps and humidity.

Characteristics of wet and dry spells in the west african monsoon. West africa has wet and dry seasons resulting from the interaction of two migrating air masses. The a stands for a tropical climate, and the w for a dry season in the winter in the savanna climate there is a distinct dry season, which is in the winter. The wet season sometimes called the rainy season is the time of year when most of a regions average annual rainfall occurs. On the flip side, its really hot and dry in west africa during this time until may when the rains come. Wet and dry seasons questacon the national science and. Conversely, in south africas western cape province, winter is actually the wettest season. During the dry season, dry air flows out to sea and during the wet season, moist air flows inland from the sea, rises and produces rain. Thus, the guinea coast displays two rainy seasons from april to july. However, ghana does have one or two rainy seasons depending on whether you are in the north or south of the country. The southern parts have one wet season and one dry season whereas east africa will have the dry season but also have two wet seasons. Over west africa, very few analyses of wet and dry spell features were. At higher latitudes, precipitation decreases and is limited to a wet season of decreasing.