Overview of the West African Monsoon 2011

The 2011 West African monsoon (WAM) season was, overall, near normal but rainfall was patchy. The irregularity of the rainfall during the crucial July-August-September (JAS) season proved difficult to predict because of conflicting signals and this highlights the significant challenges we continue to face for this region. The vagaries of the rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa have profound and often dire effects on African society and economy as the people of the region depend on it for food and water. To reduce the vulnerability of these communities to variations in the strength of the WAM, we desperately need to improve the reliability of forecasts so as to enable them to plan ahead, and national governments need to adopt coordinated policies in order to increase their capacity to cope with extended periods of water shortages due to drought. With the launch of the Africa Climate Exchange (Afclix), the UK climate community is working with the humanitarian sector and African policy-makers with the aim of channeling the latest climate science into policies to help build resilience and in-country capacity for climate compatible development in sub-Saharan Africa. The emphasis is on feet on the (African) ground mechanisms of knowledge-sharing activities at the science-policy interface. Copyright (c) 2012 Royal Meteorological Society