Spatial heterogeneity of 2015–2017 drought intensity in South Africa's winter rainfall zone

Conradie​​​​​​​, Willem Stefaan; Wolski, Piotr; Hewitson, Bruce Charles

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/ascmo-8-63-2022

Articles | Volume 8, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/ascmo-8-63-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/ascmo-8-63-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 8, issue 1

15 Mar 2022

| 15 Mar 2022

Spatial heterogeneity of 2015–2017 drought intensity in South Africa's winter rainfall zone

Willem Stefaan Conradie, Piotr Wolski, and Bruce Charles Hewitson

Data sets

GPCC Full Data Monthly Product Version 2020 at 0.25◦: Monthly Land-Surface Precipitation from Rain-Gauges built on GTS-based and Historical Data U. Schneider, A. Becker, P. Finger, E. Rustemeier, and M. Ziese https://doi.org/10.5676/DWD_GPCC/FD_M_V2020_025

Model code and software

R code for SPI calculations from monthly gridded or point rainfall data Stefaan Conradie, Bruce Hewitson, and Piotr Wolski https://doi.org/10.25375/UCT.16545690.V1

Short summary

The Day Zero water crisis affecting Cape Town after the severe 2015–2017 drought motivated renewed research interest into causes and projections of rainfall variability and change in this water-stressed region. Unusually few wet months and very wet days characterised the Day Zero Drought. Its extent expanded as it shifted gradually north-eastward, concurrent with changes in the weather systems driving drought. Our results emphasise the need to consider the interplay between drought drivers.