Introduction:

• – Water resources management decisions are important to effectively utilize the resources.
• – The need for an early forecast is important to support decision making, for better water resources planning; e.g., to mitigate impacts of floods, drought.
• – The seasonal forecast can be up to couple of months in advance
• – It has been found that the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) – sea surface temperature (SST) index represents the ENSO index in this study – of the eastern Pacific Ocean is one of the factors that influence the climate over the world and it is related to inter-annual variations of precipitation and stream flow in several regions of the world. (The most common region is Nino 3.4).

Methodology:

The method used in this study is based on the relation between the SST in the Pacific Ocean in region Nino 3.4 and the discharge of June, July, August, September (JJAS) of the Blue Nile River using the standardized indices for average SST in different quarters among the year with the standardized discharge indices during the flood season. The best correlation was considered for the prediction of the 2016 flood season .

data source: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.noaa.oisst.v2.html

Analysis:

Results:

The highest and the best correlation is over the quarter JJA with coefficient (R = 0.57). Using the ENSO forecast which are done by the IRI to estimate the average SST before the start of the season and using the equation resulted from the correlation between JJA SST and the discharge of JJAS provided that the discharge of the Blue Nile River for 2016 is likely to be above average discharge .

data source: http://iri.columbia.edu/our-expertise/climate/forecasts/enso/current/