East Africa’s short rains: what October to December usually brings
The second rainy season of the year is short and unpredictable, but for much of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Somalia it decides the harvest.
Published September 26, 2026
The second rainy season of the year is short and unpredictable, but for much of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Somalia it decides the harvest.
Near the equator in East Africa, the rain belt passes overhead twice a year. The long rains fall from March to May, and the short rains, known as vuli along the Swahili coast, arrive from October to December. The short rains are briefer and vary more from year to year, yet in eastern Kenya and much of Somalia they deliver as much water as the long rains, sometimes more.
Much of the year-to-year swing comes from the Indian Ocean. When the western Indian Ocean is warmer than the east, a pattern called a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, the short rains tend to be heavy, as in the destructive floods of late 2019. When the pattern flips, the season often fails, as it did repeatedly during the 2020 to 2022 drought in the Horn of Africa. El Niño years also lean wet and La Niña years lean dry.
Before each season, the regional climate centre ICPAC and national services such as the Kenya Meteorological Department and the Tanzania Meteorological Authority publish seasonal outlooks. Those give the odds for the whole season. For day-to-day decisions, the seven-day forecast matters more. On AfricaMeteo, the rain chance on each day of the Nairobi, Dodoma and Kampala pages shows when a wet spell is building, and a run of days above 60 percent is a better planting signal than a single early shower.