With some minor variations due to elevation and terrain features, most of the West African MPZ was in the dry season in January and February,when the last 2015 crops were being harvested. In March and April,the southernmost areas, particularly in the center and east, have started planting maize and rainfed rice.

In the Gulf of Guinea region as a whole, temperature was close to average (-0.5°C)but with synchronous fluctuations across the region. The most marked, even if not “extreme” temperature was recorded in the Nigerian Sahel in late January and early February (-5°C) and at mid-March (+3°C),which is off-season for rainfed crops but growing period for irrigated wheat. RADPAR, BIOMSS and cropped arable land fraction (72%) were all very close to their averages, and so was rainfall (+1% departure on average), for which different patterns do, however, emerge. Some early rainfall was recorded in the western (Guinea Bissau, SW Sierra Leone) and northern areas (e.g. S Burkina Faso) in March and in some southern central areas (central Côte d’Ivoire and central Ghana) in February. Nigeria (+12% RAIN), Togo (+15%) and Benin (+40%) were among the countries with rainfall somewhat exceeded average. VCIx is usually average, with some favourable spots in the southern Sahel in Nigeria and low values in NE Ghana and N Togo, as well as central-eastern Nigeria where the cereal and especially maize growing season is to start in May. Altogether, mostly off-season conditions are average for the time being, except in the west of the region (Guinea Bissau), where all indicators point at favourable vegetation and weather over the reporting period.