As rainfall year 2007 approaches the middle of the rain season and February is, overall, the wettest of the three core months the dominance of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) seems to hold the upper hand. The expectation for the second part of the season remains limited.

The other two factors in our weather scene are still visible but they are more passive than active at this stage.

During the last month the Sea Surface Temperature anomaly in the central and eastern Pacific has weakened from a plus 2 degrees Celsius to a range just above the 1-degree mark. Some patches are even below the 0.5 reading.

Closer to home, though, the oscillation factor has been all too visible. The South Atlantic anticyclone has shown disappointing weakness. The given pressures on the Surface Analysis maps have ranged between 1018 and 1024 hPa. This range for the core of an anticyclone is much lower than the normal range, which should be around the 1032-hPa mark.

Yet, when the most recent cell migrated past the southern tip of the continent, the pressure has readily increased to the1030 range.

Worldwide, weather patterns have been showing quite considerable variations from the expected range. Whether or not ENSO carries the blame or whether it is the other player, Global Warming, exerting pressure is a moot point.

The Java floods have provided just one more example. The Indonesian archipelago is generally a wetter part of the world. One place on Java Island records some 330 days of Thunder in the average year. Dry seasons are unknown to them yet the ENSO can cause Indonesian drought, usually earlier than February. The floods, however, came with a vengeance. But as the ENSO pundits do note, the various facets of ENSO do not follow tramlines, there are variations in both time and intensity.

For us here in Namibia, a variation in the presence of the fairly consistent upper air anticyclone would not be unwelcome. This core of dry, descending air has done much to perpetuate the high daytime temperatures and restrict the development of, even, heat-inspired thunderstorms. The frequently reduced intensities when such storms have developed is a further disappointing result of this anticyclonic, ENSO inspired, presence.

The global warming factor can well be responsible for the few breaks in the anticyclonic control that has been present during this New Year.

The very warm water immediately offshore the entire Angolan coast has surely had some measure of influence in the recent floods following torrential downpours around Luanda, for instance. The Angolan coastline should only experience that intensity of rain some two months later, April instead of January.

For the immediate future, more or less up to the end of February, the prospects are for some rain, but generally still below the rainfall that our records associate with this month.

At this point it is difficult to make a reliable prediction based on the available data. American weather forecast models are confident that the EL Nino is receding. At the current rate, it should disappear by May. With the weakening El Nino, the Trade Wind pattern is returning to normal which means the anticyclonic cell in the southern Atlantic will strengthen and its counterpart in the Indian Ocean will weaken. This is the cell that has been dominating Namibian weather for the past three months. Once it weakens, then moist Congo air penetrating as far south as our central parts becomes a realistic expectation.

As the Equinox (March) approaches, it takes us to the season for cut-off vortex developments. With Congo air being drawn south towards the cut-off, it also improves prospects for rain in the central, eastern and southern parts.

My expectation for February and the early part of March is that the rains will remain patchy and of low intensity. But during March, and into April and May, I expect a revival of the late season.