Question

Why does the eastern part of central African continent gets less rainfall than the western part despite its location close to the equator

Answer 1

The most important component of climate is precipitation, because rainfall provides water for survival. Equatorial regions have extremely regular annual and inter-annual (short-term and long-term) patterns of rainfall. These regions include the rain forest areas of Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, and parts of both the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These regions have between 8 and 12 months where rainfall is >50 mm/month and as many as 200 days of precipitation each year, making the equatorial zone the wettest on the planet. The equatorial region has no real dry season and is constantly hot and humid. This idea should sound familiar to you, because the White Nile starts in the equatorial region, and it does not have a major flood season.

As distance from the equator increases, the duration, amount and reliability of precipitation all decrease. As a result, agricultural enterprises of any type become a riskier business as one moves away from the equator. The extreme, of course, is the Sahara desert in northern Africa.

So what causes the rain to fall at the equator but not in the higher latitudes? To answer that question we need to look at the movement of air around the Earth. On a large scale, there are few air masses which shape the rainfall characteristics of tropical Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding the East African coast) gets its precipitation from tropical moist oceanic air that moves from the Atlantic and Indian Oceans toward an equatorial low pressure zone. This area is the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). The ITCZ is also called the "climate equator"—it lies near the geographic equator, and divides the global air circulation patterns into two mirror images to the north and south. The ITCZ is an area of low atmospheric pressure that forms where the Northeast Trade Winds meet the Southeast Trade Winds near (actually just north of) the earth's equator.v

Answer 2

Answer:

The eastern part of the central African

continent receives rainfall from the

North eastern winds.On observing the location of African continent on the world map, it can be

observed that it is surrounded on the

North eastern side by the Asian and

European continent.

Due to this before reaching the eastern

part of the central African continent, the

North eastern winds majorly blow over

this land mass and not over any ocean.

As a result, the moisture content that

these winds carry is comparatively low.

Hence, though it lies near the equator, the

eastern part of the central African continent

receives low rainfall.