Abstract
This study was conducted to examine the climate characteristic of southern highland Tanzania (Latitude 6˚S - 12˚S and Longitude 29˚E - 38˚E). The study findings reveal that rainfall over the region is linked with SST over the Indian Ocean, where warmer (cooler) western Indian Ocean is accompanied by high (low) amount of rainfall over Tanzania. During wet (dry) years, weaker (stronger) equatorial westerlies and anticyclone (cyclonic) anomaly over the southern tropics act to reduce (enhance) the export of equatorial moisture away from East Africa. The wettest (driest) season was found to be 1978/79 (1999/00) which can be classified as the severely wet (moderate drought). Two different modes of rainfall have been identified at time scale of 1.5 and 6 years which have been associated with the quasi biennial oscillation (QBO) and El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), respectively.
Highlights
Tanzania has been experiencing unreliable and unpredictable rainfall patterns for the past few decades
The study findings reveal that rainfall over the region is linked with sea surface temperature (SST) over the Indian Ocean, where warmer western Indian Ocean is accompanied by high amount of rainfall over Tanzania
Two different modes of rainfall have been identified at time scale of 1.5 and 6 years which have been associated with the quasi biennial oscillation (QBO) and El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), respectively
Summary
Tanzania has been experiencing unreliable and unpredictable rainfall patterns for the past few decades. Study by Indeje and Semazzi [16] found rainfall oscillates in East Africa to have dominant periodicity of between 1.7 - 2.5 and 4 - 5 years, which appear to be related to quasi biennial oscillations (QBO) and ENSO events respectively. It is the interest of this paper to find out the characteristics of the rainfall over southern highlands Tanzania and the reasons for the observed characteristics since the study area is of significance importance to the economy of the country
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