Africa Update #15

A slight break from the excessive moisture across some areas of southern Africa during the last week. Madagascar, however had extremely heavy rain. As protests continue in the north, dry but cool weather remains firmly in place, as is seasonal. Some snow has accumulated in Morocco over the last week.

A small break in the rains across parts of southern Africa during the last week. South Africa, Botswana and southern Mozambique has a a week to let the excess water drain down. This area roughly corresponds to the Limpopo River valley, an area that is climatologically drier than surrounding areas. To the north heavy rain continued across Zimbabwe, Zambia and central Mozambique, all of which has added more pressure on the already flooded Zambezi River. Heavy rain also persisted near the Caprivi Strip, in northeastern Namibia, possibly adding to flooding concerns there. This rainfall pattern looks to persist into the coming week.

The heaviest rain, by far this past week, was across Madagascar. Rainfall well exceeded 200 mm (8 inches) over the past week in the northern part of the island. further south a more moderate- but still extremely heavy- 100 mm (4 inches) of rain was reported. News has not yet made it out of the country, but the rugged terrain combined with those precipitation totals has undoubtedly caused flooding and landslides. Antananarivo, the capital and largest city in Madagascar, appears to have missed the heaviest of the rains. Heavy rainfall remains a possibility over the next week in Madagascar.

In the north, cool and dry weather continues in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Morocco and Algeria having been dropping down to near freezing in the lowlands, with colder temperatures in the Atlas Mountains.  No precipitation of any significance is expected in the countries that have experienced unrest during the next week, however some light rain remains a possibility along the Libyan coast.