NEWS
Abundant Rain Turns Namibia Green
Michael Carlowicz
Reprinted From : http :// go . nasa . gov / 3sTJh3d
With approximately 300 days of sunshine annually , and persistent , dry onshore winds provoked by the Benguela current , Namibia is quite dry for much of the year . The rainy season ( November through April ) is modest by most precipitation standards in the world . This year , it has brought an abundance . a
January 2021 saw rainfall totals double to triple the norm in the northeastern , central , and southern parts of Namibia . According to a weather monitor in Windhoek , 228 millimeters ( 9 inches ) of rain fell in January ; the long-term average is 85 millimeters ( 3 inches ).
The period of relatively abundant rains followed a December that brought about 25 percent more rain than normal . The wet season rainfall totals are the highest since 2010 and 2011 . ( This
map shows precipitation anomalies as recorded by NOAA ' s Climate Prediction Center .)
The natural-colour images above show the landscape greening due to the rain . They were acquired in February 2021 and January 2020 by the
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ( MODIS ) on NASA ’ s Terra satellite . b
The map below , also derived from
Terra data , shows changes in the “ greenness ” of the landscape in February 2021 compared to the 20-year average for the month ( Read more about the
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index .)
The strong rainfall has been a boon to farmers in the region , as nearly half of Namibia ’ s people depend on subsistence farming . The extra rain has filled many reservoirs behind the country ’ s dams .
At the same time , the typically dry region has sporadic storm-drain systems , and some roads are poorly
Figure 1 : Satellite images of Namibia on ( a ) January 29 , 2020 , and ( b ) February 7 , 2021 .
43 Grassroots Vol 21 No 1 March 2021
