During the monitoring period, lower-than-average rainfall occurred in many regions around the world as can be seen on figure 1.1. 

Abnormal rainfall deficits occurred in some major agricultural areas of Asia, including Punjab to Gujarat (MRU-48, -41%), East Asia (MRU-43, -48%),Huanghuaihai in China (MRU-34, -30%), northeast China (MRU-38, +24%), Hainan(MRU-33, -41%), Taiwan (MRU-42, -25%) and maritime Southeast Asia (MRU-49,-52%).

Unfortunately, drought continued in major production zones in Australia,Europe and Africa, including New Zealand (MRU-56 -73%), Queensland to Victoria(MRU-54, -43%), north Australia (MRU-53, -71%), Ukraine to the Ural Mountains(MRU-58, -25%) and non-Mediterranean Western Europe (MRU-60, -16%).

With the exception of north African Mediterranean areas (MRU-07, +46%),below average rainfall prevailed in Africa, including the East African highlands (MRU-02, -28%), the Horn of Africa (MRU-04, -25%), southern Africa(MRU-09, -19%) and Western Cape in South Africa (MRU-10, -19%).

Above average rainfall occurred in major production zones in both North and South America, including the Pampas (MRU-26, +35%), Central eastern Brazil(MRU-23, +53%), and the Northern Great Plains (MRU-12, +45%). Abundant rainfall fell over some pastoral regions, including Southern Mongolia (MRU-47, +309%),Gansu-Xinjiang (MRU-32, +173%) and the Ural to Altai Mountains (MRU-62, +50%).

Figure 1.1. Global map of rainfall anomaly (asindicated by the RAIN indicator) by MRU, departure from 14YA, July-October 2015(percentage)

Note: Data for July-October,compared with the fourteen-year average (14YA) for the same period 2001-2014