Ndoye waves to his sons from shore and smiles as they dump off the day's catch to the couriers. The translucent sea can be so generous, he says, as he surveys the mounds of fresh seafood piling up. It can be so calm and so kind. At the weather station in the airport in Dakar, meteorologist Mamina Kawara says no one can accurately figure out the whims of the tropics. For even the most advanced scientists, he says, hurricane forecasting is a crapshoot.
Scientists can only speculate.
Or maybe more rain in the Sahel is an indicator of the changing global weather conditions that breed more hurricanes. In a typical summer, Kawara monitors more than 60 thunderstorms as they push across West Africa to the sea. Most pass over southern Senegal, where the political situation on the ground is dicey these days. The region is often peppered by gunfire and mortar rounds fired by insurgents determined to break away from the Senegalese government. Kawara, however, concentrates on the weather disturbances.