On the question of the “recovery” of the rains in the West African Sahel

The results also suggest a limited recovery in the eastern Sahel/Soudan. Rainfall returned to pre-drought levels in the two southern-most Sahel zones (12-16°N), but in the two northern zones (16-20°N), the drought appears to have intensified. In the southern-most zone (the central Sahel, 12-14°N), conditions in recent years seem to have been particularly favorable and comparable to the 1950s and 1960s. August trends were markedly similar to these seasonal trends. As in the western region, the wettest years were 1998, 1999 and 2003, but only 2000 was markedly drier than the other five.