15 Feb 2017

It is extremely rare for certain types of weather phenomena to reach our shores.
In fact if they do pass over Botswana, according to climate experts they are usually considerably weakened after crossing inland from the deep ocean waters.
This week curiosity grasped a lot of Batswana after a tropical storm which was later updated to a cyclone status burst into the southern African coastal zones.
Excitement brewed after international media as far as North America and Eastern Europe beamed news updates that the cyclone was known as “Dineo”, a Setswana name.
“It usually starts as a tropical storm with threshold or gusty winds. As it moves further inlands it weakens or dies because of frictional forces. By (Thursday) it would no longer be a cyclone but tropical depression or low pressure system which is likely to bring heavy rains in the eastern parts of Botswana, going towards the central and the Ghanzi area,” explained Department of Meteorological Services (DMS) chief meteorologist Mr  Radithupa Radithupa in an interview yesterday.
Heavy rains of up to 100 millimetres are due in these areas.
Quizzed on how the cyclone got a Setswana inspired name Mr  Radithupa said the name was proposed by Botswana to the Tropical Cyclone Committee of the South West Indian Ocean Region.
Mr Radithupa noted that once the storm reaches moderate tropical intensity it should be named.
The region has a Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre in Re-Union Republic that monitors the weather systems over the region. Each year different countries who are members get to name one cyclone.
The name Dineo was assigned according to a pre-defined alphabetical list for the 2016/2017 tropical storm season in the South-West Indian Ocean.
The storm started off  yesterday by hitting Mozambique’s coastline before reaching South Africa where heavy rain‚ flooding and possibly wind damage were likely to be recorded. The Eastern and western parts of Botswana will most likely be caught by Dineo’s grip going into the weekend and probably go into next week.
In December last year the DMS had reviewed the state of the global climate systems and analysed the rainfall prospects for the period January to March 2017.
The outcome was that the 2017 season will generally be an above normal rainfall season. Most parts of the country were expected to be very wet.
The eastern parts of the country (Southern-Central and Northeast District) were expected to receive above normal rainfall into the extremely wet range.
The Department of Meteorological Services through its participation in the Southern African Regional Climate Outlook Forum developed a statistical model for Botswana which was used to generate the seasonal rainfall outlook update for 2017.
The November 2016 Sea Surface Temperatures were used as a predictor whilst rainfall was the predictand. ENDS