The forecast includes a greater-than 80 per cent chance of above average rainfall in southern Ethiopia, eastern Kenya and southern Somalia, but also probable dry conditions for parts of Uganda and South Sudan, according to the ICPAC scientists, who provide climate services to 11 East African nations.

The downpours may also cause landslides, flash floods, and buildings to collapse, ICPAC Director Guleid Artan warned.

These tragedies will be accompanied by another, annual and inevitable one: the invasion of locusts, those insects that devastate crops, and not to mention the eruption of outbreaks of vector-borne infectious diseases, such as cholera, an endemic disease to several African countries that kills a lot of people.

pll/arm/ro/ms