About 60 kms from the capital city of Kenya, Nairobi, the torrential rains and deadly floods have hit the people in villages near Mai Mahiu since March. The government has so far reported 169 deaths and 91 missing due to the heavy rains. In fact, on Monday, April  29, at least 48 people were killed after the water blew through a blocked river tunnel under a railway line, causing floods. 

While rescue efforts to pull people out of mud and from the fear of death toll are being taken care of, the rain has already displaced over 1,90,000 people along with the infrastructural damages. 

Why catastrophic rainfall in Kenya?

It is anticipated that the rainfall is a result of varied factors including the country’s seasonal weather pattern, human caused climate changes and natural weather. Let’s understand this in-depth.

Parts of Eastern Africa and Kenya have two major rainfall seasons, that is long rains and short rains. While the month of March to May experiences long rains, the short rains can be seen during the period of October to December. Now, the country records its average rainfall during the long rains season, which can even go up to June, the season is often called torrential rains. 

Also Read

Further, the meteorological department of Kenya has predicted the season to experience an above-average rainfall along with occasional storms in some parts of the country. The department even showed concerns for flash floods, landslides, mudslides, among other impacts. 

Reasons for intense rainfall:

  1. Due to the naturally occurring climatic conditions such as the Indian Ocean Dipole as it is a swing of sea surface temperatures and results into making western Indian Ocean warmer and eastern Indian Ocean colder than the average.
  2. Due to positive, negative and neutral phases. While the positive phase is responsible for heavy rainfall in the west of the Indian Ocean, it also causes droughts in Australia and Indonesia. 
  3. Due to the effects of the naturally occurring El Nino weather phenomenon. El Nino is the warming of the ocean over the Pacific Ocean, which changes the routes for storms and it can cause heavy rainfall in some parts of the world and droughts in others.

(with agency inputs)