Towards early warnings for all in Africa

Heavy precipitation is a hallmark of the rainy season along that part of Africa’s western coastline, however, the sheer volumes of water lashing down on saturated grounds led to some districts experiencing some of the heaviest rainfall on record.

“The June 2024 flooding events led to a devastating loss of life and property,” says Daouda Konaté, Director of the Côte d'Ivoire’s National Meteorology Service and First Vice President of the World Meteorological Organization. “However, the situation could have been far worse, had it not been for early warning systems developed during the past decade that have strengthened responses to severe weather events in Cote D’Ivoire.

“When unprecedented rainfalls were predicted in Abidjan, an ‘orange alert’ was immediately issued, and the response coordination was escalated to the highest levels of government. People living in high-risk areas were urged to seek safe places to shelter via various communication channels.”

Konaté says that factors such as rapid urbanisation and the climate crisis have raised the urgency of developing resilience and preparedness strategies to protect lives and livelihoods in Africa, mirroring United Nations goals for every person on Earth to be covered by early warning systems for hazardous weather, water, and climate events by the end of 2027. 

“Our goal in Cote D’Ivoire has been to build community awareness and preparedness strategies to protect lives and property from extreme weather hazards,” he says. “This has involved the development of a dedicated multi-sectoral risk management platform that connects specialists from meteorology departments, local authorities, and relief agencies, with the aim of providing early warnings to citizens and, when necessary, coordinating disaster response.

“Satellite data provide critical observations that help inform governments, communities, and individuals how to act. For example, EUMETSAT’s Meteosat spacecraft are the only Earth observation satellites that have a constant view of Africa 24/7, providing regular and timely data on key weather and climate parameters across the continent. When these datasets are assimilated with observations from ground-based systems, they can have a phenomenal impact. 

“Data from the Meteosat missions enables forecasters to deliver nowcasts – very short-range forecasts of rapidly developing weather systems – that underpin our early warning platforms. They also provide datasets that can markedly improve meteorological services across other weather-dependent sectors, including agriculture, health care, water resource management, and energy production.”

Building capacity to act

However, Konaté points out that to improve prediction power and build on communities’ capacity to act, a lot more can and must be done.

“Recent years have seen devastating droughts on the greater Horn of Africa, massive floods in countries such as Nigeria and South Africa, and Cyclone Freddy, the deadliest tropical storm ever recorded on the continent – yet the harsh reality is that Africa has the sparsest network of ground-based weather observation stations in the world,” he says. 

“Improving coverage of automatic weather stations is, therefore, one key priority. Another is to increase the capabilities of national meteorological and hydrological institutions in terms of how they access and use satellite data from next-generation missions, which can help fill in some of these gaps. 

“Meteosat Third Generation will increase the resolution and frequency of satellite data, as well as providing valuable new data types such as lightning observations from space. These datasets present opportunities to develop real-time monitoring of the atmosphere so that people can be warned when a flood, a heatwave, or storm is on its way. 

“To make the most of these observations, we need to improve and upgrade infrastructure including antenna and digital services such as broadband and mobile coverage that enables specialists to obtain data and disseminate warnings. 

“We also need to increase the abilities of forecasters to work with the data, by improving training, capacity building, and promoting research and development of Africa-focused satellite services, for instance in regions prone to droughts, floods, cyclones, or dust storms.”

Empowering people and communities

Konaté adds that these satellite services and the early warning platforms they support are most effective when co-produced by end users. 

“Better warnings have ensured that, in some parts of the world, the number of people killed in floods, storms, and landslides has fallen significantly,” Konaté says. “However, the impacts of these warnings depend very much on where you live.

“Therefore, we are focused on the development of a joined-up strategy to improve early warnings, which includes community preparedness programmes based on established indicators and the use of diverse communications to deliver them, such as SMS, radio and television broadcasts, and social media.

“The broad range of data provided by meteorological satellites not only underpin warnings of weather and climate-related catastrophes, but products and services can also be developed to help ensure people are not left to fend for themselves in the aftermath. We need to develop the use of this data in collaboration with core users to help communities in Africa thrive. 

“By developing these key components and drawing on all the resources available, we can take substantial steps toward providing early warnings for all in Africa.”

Author:

Adam Gristwood

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Copyright UNDP Somalia 2019