This season, the Duékoué department in Ivory Coast has been characterized by a warm anomaly, which has not significantly influenced the cocoa production timing and survival.
The warm anomaly has been mostly attributed to the maximum daytime temperatures, while the nighttime minimum temperatures have stayed, for the most part, in line with the average until the end of October.
In this rather average evolution of minimum temperatures over the season, the only relevant anomaly occurred in the second half of November, when the Intertropical Front briefly dived south several times, leading to a cooling down of the area at night.
This rather short event is, in itself, not very important. However, if it is followed by similar cool anomalies in the coming weeks, this could lead to slower depletion of the soil water reserves compared to the norm – unless the cool temperatures are a consequence of significant air humidity drops.
