AS MOZAMBIQUE struggles to recover from its devastating floods, one person
can claim to have predicted the heavy rains over the region that caused the
disaster. Mark Jury, a climate modeller at the University of Zululand in South
Africa, warned in a press statement last September of a “wet, wet” start to 2000
in southern Africa. If more notice had been taken, he says, the floods could
have been reduced.
In January, when international forecasters were cautiously predicting
above-average rains, Jury said there would be 75 per cent more rainfall than
usual in the catchment area of the River Limpopo,…
