Co-developing rainfall forecasting that leverages the rich hydroclimate data landscape: the Kenya Meteorological Service Authority’s partnership with the UCSB Climate Hazards Center

In Kenya, forecasters can tell you tomorrow's weather and the outlook for the season ahead. But farmers deciding when to plant have long lacked forecasts for the period in between: what the next one to six weeks will bring. In this conversation, Jeff Albert of The Aquaya Institute talks with Chris Funk, director of the Climate Hazards Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Phillip Okello Ochieng, a meteorologist with the Kenya Meteorological Department, about closing that gap together. The research agenda came from Kenyan meteorologists themselves. They explain how 45 years of rainfall data from the Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS) are blended with readings from 3D-printed weather stations that Kenyan staff build for about $500. They also discuss how county-level forecasts reach people in local languages by text message, and how this year's strong El Niño is testing preparedness compared with the 2023 Tana River floods.