Forecasters have warned that the El Niño climate phenomenon now developing could become one of the strongest on record, with heavy rain and flooding predicted for Kenya. The warning has stirred deep anxiety across the East African nation, where past flood seasons have destroyed homes, roads and livelihoods. The alarm was captured bluntly in words quoted in a BBC report on the forecast: "It can kill us."
Kenya sits squarely within the belt of East African territory that strong El Niño events tend to drench. The current forecast points to downpours heavy enough to trigger flooding across large parts of the country as the rainy season approaches, with forecasters drawing comparisons between the developing event and the most powerful episodes in the historical record.
El Niño is a recurring, naturally driven climate pattern that begins with a warming of sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. The temperature rise, part of the wider El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle, disrupts wind and rainfall patterns over vast stretches of the planet, intensifying storms in some regions while drying out others. Events return at irregular intervals of a few years and vary widely in strength, and the strongest episodes have historically reshaped weather conditions worldwide.
Kenya experiences two main rainy seasons each year: the long rains from around March to…
