Kenya Climate – Sep 2026September 2026 Update

Novarupta (Katmai) eruption

The largest volcanic eruption anywhere in the world in the 20th century - 13 km3 of magma, about thirty times the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption - at Novarupta in Alaska on 6-8 June 1912. Ash reached 100,000 ft and cooled the Northern Hemisphere by roughly 0.3°C over 1912-13. Unlike a tropical eruption such as Pinatubo, a high-latitude eruption's haze stays in its own hemisphere, so it did little to the Southern Hemisphere.

Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program, Alaska Volcano Observatory, National Park Service, Oman et al. 2005

Post-WWII industrial expansion begins

After the Second World War, coal and oil use grew rapidly across Europe, North America and the Soviet Union. Global sulphur dioxide emissions rose from about 30 to about 130 million tonnes a year by 1980, and the sulphate haze they formed masked part of the greenhouse warming underneath - the effect known as 'global dimming'.

Klimont et al. 2013

How much ENSO really controls Kenya's climate

ENSO matters in Kenya, most of all in October-December: the El Niño-La Niña cycle explains about 24% of the year-to-year swing in Kenya's October-December rainfall, with El Niño years tending wetter and La Niña years drier. That puts Kenya among the 88 countries in this site's data where ENSO's influence is strong enough to be worth reporting.

NOAA CPC

The 1955-56 La Niña

Kenya's rainfall for October-December 1955 ran -30% against its 1961-90 average - the dry October-December that La Niña usually brings here.

ONI -1.6°C · RONI -1.4°C

NOAA CPCENSO Tracker

Keeling Curve begins

Charles David Keeling begins continuous measurements of atmospheric CO₂ at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, starting at about 315 ppm. The record has risen every year since and is now the longest unbroken direct measurement of CO₂ anywhere - the 'Keeling Curve'.

NOAA GMLGreenhouse Gases

Agung eruption

Agung's eruption in Bali put a veil of sulphate haze into the stratosphere that cooled global temperature by about 0.3°C over 1963-66.

Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program, NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory

The 1972-73 El Niño

Kenya's rainfall for October-December 1972 ran +18% against its 1961-90 average - the wet October-December that El Niño usually brings here.

ONI +1.8°C · RONI +2.0°C

NOAA CPCENSO Tracker

The 1973-74 La Niña

Kenya's rainfall for October-December 1973 ran -38% against its 1961-90 average - the dry October-December that La Niña usually brings here.

ONI -2.0°C · RONI -1.9°C

NOAA CPCENSO Tracker

The 1975-76 La Niña

Kenya's rainfall for October-December 1975 ran -51% against its 1961-90 average - the dry October-December that La Niña usually brings here.

ONI -1.6°C · RONI -1.1°C

NOAA CPCENSO Tracker

Pacific Decadal Oscillation flips to a warm phase

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation - a slow natural cycle in North Pacific sea temperatures - switches from its cool to its warm phase in 1976-77. The change was abrupt enough to be called the 1976-77 Pacific Climate Shift: it warmed Alaska and the west coast of North America, and reorganised North Pacific fisheries.

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Global SO2 emissions peak

Global sulphur dioxide emissions peak at about 130 million tonnes a year, then begin a long decline as Europe, North America and Japan clean up their air. As the aerosol mask thins, the rate of global warming picks up through the 1980s.

Klimont et al. 2013

El Chichón eruption

A sulphur-rich eruption in Mexico whose aerosol cloud stayed in the stratosphere for more than two years, cooling the Northern Hemisphere by about 0.2°C.

Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program

1982-83 El Niño

Kenya's rainfall for October-December 1982 ran +60% against its 1961-90 average - the wet October-December that El Niño usually brings here. On NOAA's Relative Oceanic Niño Index this is the strongest El Niño since 1950.

ONI +2.1°C · RONI +2.4°C

NOAA CPC, NOAA CPC (2)ENSO Tracker

The Antarctic ozone hole is discovered

British Antarctic Survey scientists Joe Farman, Brian Gardiner and Jon Shanklin publish their Halley and Faraday measurements on 16 May 1985, showing October ozone over Antarctica had fallen to about two-thirds of earlier decades. The cause is traced to chlorofluorocarbons, and the finding triggers the fastest international environmental response on record.

Nature, UKRI

The Montreal Protocol

Signed in 1987 to phase out ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, the Montreal Protocol turned out to be one of the most consequential climate treaties ever agreed. CFCs are potent greenhouse gases in their own right, and NOAA estimates the Protocol prevented up to 2°C of warming by 2100 - around 1°C from the emissions avoided, and up to 1°C more by sparing forests and other carbon sinks from increased ultraviolet radiation.

NOAA, Wikipedia

CO₂ crosses 350 ppm

Atmospheric CO₂ passes 350 ppm. In the same year James Hansen told a US Senate committee that global warming was already detectable, the moment it entered mainstream politics. Twenty years later, in 2008, Hansen proposed 350 ppm as the safe upper limit - a level the world had already left behind.

NOAA GMLGreenhouse Gases

Daytime warming catches up with the night-led pattern

Across 1961-90, 81% of the world's land saw nights warming faster than days. Across 1991-2020 the pattern reversed: 70% saw days warming faster, as the industrial haze that had been dimming daytime sunshine was cleaned up. The study compares two fixed thirty-year windows; measured as a turning point, this site's own global series turns around 1982.

Zhong et al. 2023

Mount Pinatubo erupts

Pinatubo's cooling does not show in Kenya's own record: 1992, the year after the June 1991 eruption, was an unremarkable year there, 38th-coldest of 76. A single large eruption can hold temperatures down for two or three years; it cannot reverse the trend.

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Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation flips to a warm phase

The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation - a slow natural cycle in North Atlantic sea temperatures, roughly 60-70 years long - flips to its warm phase in 1995. Warm phases are linked to more active Atlantic hurricane seasons, wetter summers in parts of north-west Europe and more frequent drought in the central and western United States.

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1997-98 El Niño

Kenya's rainfall for October-December 1997 ran +200% against its 1961-90 average - the wet October-December that El Niño usually brings here. It is often treated as the textbook strong El Niño.

ONI +2.4°C · RONI +2.3°C

NOAA CPC, NOAA NCEIENSO Tracker

East Africa's floods, 1997-98

From late October 1997 to January 1998, torrential rains brought East Africa its worst flooding since 1961. The 1997-98 El Niño coincided with an extreme positive Indian Ocean Dipole - by NOAA's Dipole Mode Index, September-November 1997 is the strongest positive IOD season since 1871. Floods and the disease outbreaks that followed, including Rift Valley fever, killed thousands. On this site's rainfall record, Kenya's October-December 1997 was the wettest since 1950, 200% above its 1961-90 average.

Saji et al. (1999), Webster et al. (1999), CDC MMWR (1998), FAO GIEWS, NOAA PSLIndian Ocean Dipole

Pacific Decadal Oscillation flips back to a cool phase

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation - a slow natural cycle in North Pacific sea temperatures - flips back to its cool phase around 1998-99. The cool phase that followed is one reason global surface warming appeared to slow in the 2000s, as more heat went into the deep Pacific.

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The 2007-08 La Niña

Kenya's rainfall for October-December 2007 ran -31% against its 1961-90 average - the dry October-December that La Niña usually brings here.

ONI -1.8°C · RONI -1.7°C

NOAA CPCENSO Tracker

2009-10 El Niño

Kenya's rainfall for October-December 2009 ran +20% against its 1961-90 average - the wet October-December that El Niño usually brings here.

ONI +1.5°C · RONI +1.5°C

NOAA/IRI ENSO archiveENSO Tracker

Global heatwave days sharply accelerate

Kenya's own heatwave days - days in warm spells well above the local norm - rose from a 1961-90 average of 1.4 a year to 17.7 in 2016-25 - 12 times as many. Worldwide, heatwave days have roughly doubled each decade since 2010, as the whole temperature distribution has shifted upwards.

Learn more →Heatwave Days

The 2010-2012 La Niña

Kenya's rainfall for October-December 2010 ran -41% against its 1961-90 average - the dry October-December that La Niña usually brings here.

ONI -1.6°C · RONI -1.6°C

NOAA CPC ONI

Horn of Africa drought and famine, 2010-11

The October-December 2010 short rains failed across the Horn of Africa during La Niña and a negative Indian Ocean Dipole, and the 2011 long rains failed too - one of the region's worst droughts in decades. On 20 July 2011 the UN declared famine in parts of southern Somalia, and a later FSNAU / FEWS NET study estimated that about 258,000 people died in Somalia between October 2010 and April 2012, half of them children under five. On this site's rainfall record, Kenya's October-December 2010 rainfall was 41% below its 1961-90 average, among the ten driest since 1950.

Lott et al. (2013), NOAA Climate.gov, NOAA Climate.gov (2), UN press, FAO SomaliaIndian Ocean Dipole

CO₂ crosses 400 ppm

Atmospheric CO₂ passes 400 ppm at Mauna Loa on 9 May 2013 - a level the planet had not seen for 3-5 million years, since the Pliocene, when sea levels were many metres higher.

NOAA GMLGreenhouse Gases

2015-16 El Niño

Kenya's rainfall for October-December 2015 ran +24% against its 1961-90 average - the wet October-December that El Niño usually brings here. By the raw ONI index it was the strongest El Niño ever measured - a reminder that a strong index does not guarantee a strong local outcome.

ONI +2.6°C · RONI +2.3°C

NOAA CPCENSO Tracker

2015-2025: the eleven warmest years on record

Globally, the eleven warmest years on record have all happened since 2015. Kenya tracks that closely - nine of its own eleven warmest fall in the same span, with only 2009 and 2005 outside. Its warmest year is 2024.

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East Africa's floods and the extreme positive IOD, 2019

In 2019 the Indian Ocean Dipole swung to one of its strongest positive phases on record while the Pacific was ENSO-neutral - by NOAA's Dipole Mode Index, September-November 2019 is the second-strongest positive IOD season since 1871, after 1997. East Africa's October-December short rains were among the wettest on record, with widespread flooding. On this site's rainfall record, Kenya's October-December 2019 was the third-wettest since 1950, 137% above its 1961-90 average.

Wainwright et al. (2021), NOAA PSLIndian Ocean Dipole

COVID-19 lockdowns - CO₂ emissions dip

Global fossil CO₂ emissions fell about 5.8% in 2020, from 37.0 to 34.8 billion tonnes, yet atmospheric CO₂ still rose 2.5 ppm - the dip barely registers in the atmospheric record. Emissions were back to pre-pandemic levels by 2022.

Le Quéré et al. 2020

Low-sulphur shipping fuel rule (IMO 2020)

New international shipping rules cut the sulphur allowed in ship fuel from 3.5% to 0.5% almost overnight, removing about 8 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide a year. With less sulphate haze over the oceans, it may have added around 0.1°C of warming by 2023-24.

Gettelman et al. 2024

The 2020-2023 'triple-dip' La Niña

Kenya's rainfall for October-December 2020 ran -11% against its 1961-90 average - the dry October-December that La Niña usually brings here.

ONI -1.1°C · RONI -1.5°C

WMO, WMO (2)ENSO Tracker

The Horn of Africa drought, 2020-23

From late 2020, five rainy seasons in a row failed across Somalia, southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya - something never seen before - during the long 2020-23 La Niña. It was the region's worst drought in 40 years, and by 2023 about 32 million people needed urgent help. Attribution studies found climate change made it about 100 times more likely.

UNDRR, OCHA, CNN

Lake Victoria at a record high, 2020

Rain from late 2019 into 2020, during a strongly positive Indian Ocean Dipole, raised Lake Victoria to 13.42 m on 7 May 2020, beating the record of 13.41 m set in 1964. Shoreline and island communities flooded, and more than 200,000 people were displaced across Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

The Independent (Uganda), Circle of Blue

2023-24 El Niño

Kenya's rainfall for October-December 2023 ran +123% against its 1961-90 average - the wet October-December that El Niño usually brings here. Globally it helped produce the record temperatures of 2023 and 2024.

ONI +2.0°C · RONI +1.4°C

NOAA CPCENSO Tracker

East Africa's short-rains floods, 2023

Exceptionally heavy October-December rains flooded southern Somalia, eastern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, which were only just emerging from the 2020-23 drought. More than 300 people died and over a million were displaced in Kenya and Somalia alone. El Niño was blamed at the time, but a World Weather Attribution study found a strongly positive Indian Ocean Dipole - by NOAA's index the third-strongest September-November since 1871 - and climate change each made a similar contribution, together roughly doubling the rainfall, with no significant role for ENSO. On this site's rainfall record, Kenya's October-December 2023 was the fourth-wettest since 1950, 123% above its 1961-90 average.

World Weather Attribution, CNN, NOAA PSLIndian Ocean Dipole