Heatwaves
Heatwave days and events per year, measured against each place’s own baseline rather than a single continental threshold, so a hot week in the highlands counts as one.
days · eventslocal baseline
Physical risk
Thirty-five years of what the climate has actually done, everywhere you lend.
Observed hazard history from ERA5 reanalysis, 1991 to 2025, turned into heatwave, rainfall, drought and heat-stress indicators for every African country, admin-1 region and municipality, so “a bad year” becomes a number you can point to.
Heatwave days per year, Garissa (admin-1)
58 days · record 2024
median 1991–2020
23 days
23 days
srcERA5 · 1991–2025 · v1.3Illustrative
Coverage at a glance
- Years of history
- 35yrsObserved history, 1991–2025, from ERA5 reanalysis
- Countries
- 54African countries, each down to admin-1 region and municipality
- Drought timescales
- 1·3·6·12SPI timescales in months, from a failed rain to a lost year
- Indicator families
- 6Indicator families, from heatwaves to livestock heat stress
What we measure
Six ways the climate shows up in a loan book.
Each indicator is computed the same way for every place and every year, against the same baseline, so a district in Malawi and a municipality in Morocco can sit in the same table and mean the same thing.
Extreme rain
Days of extreme daily rainfall and the wettest spells of each year: the events behind flash floods, washed-out roads and waterlogged harvests.
extreme dayswettest spell
Drought (SPI)
The Standardised Precipitation Index at 1, 3, 6 and 12 months: from a failed short rain to a lost year. Classes follow the published SPI bands.
SPI-1 · 3 · 6 · 12
ENSO phase
El Niño, La Niña or neutral for every season, side by side with the local record, so you can see which regions dry out and which flood when the Pacific shifts.
El Niño · La Niña · neutral
WBGT heat stress
Wet-bulb globe temperature, the measure used for safe working limits, counting the days when outdoor work in fields, mines and construction sites has to slow or stop.
WBGTlabour days
Livestock heat (THI)
The temperature–humidity index for cattle and other livestock, flagging the days when milk yields, weight gain and fertility fall in dairy and ranching regions.
THIdairy · ranching
Drought, four ways
A dry month and a dry year are different risks. We measure both.
SPI compares rainfall over a window with what is normal for that place and season. Short windows catch the failed planting rain; long windows catch the reservoir that never refilled.
SPI-1 and SPI-3
Planting and growing-season stress: the timescales that move crop yields and seasonal agricultural lending.
SPI-6 and SPI-12
Groundwater, reservoirs and hydropower: the slow droughts that reach utilities, municipalities and whole regional economies.
SPI classes (published bands)
- Near normal−0.99 to 0.99
- Moderately dry−1.0 to −1.49
- Severely dry−1.5 to −1.99
- Extremely dry≤ −2.0
SPI-12, Laikipia (admin-1), with ENSO phase
−2.3 · 2022, extremely dry
3 episodes below −1.5
since 1991
since 1991
srcERA5 precipitation · SPIENSOseasonal phaseIllustrative
Places and records
Every country, region and municipality, with its record years named.
Your counterparties are not national averages. Each indicator is published at three levels of place, and each place carries its own baseline, its own record year and an honest flag when the latest year is not yet complete.
| Place | Level | Median | Record | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kenya | Country | 14 d | 37 d | 2024 |
| Garissa | Admin-1 | 23 d | 58 d | 2024 |
| Kano | Admin-1 | 24 d | 61 d | 2024 |
| Polokwane | Municipality | 9 d | 27 d | 2016 |
| Marrakech | Municipality | 17 d | 44 d | 2023 |
| Lusaka | Municipality | 11 d | 29 d | 2025 partial |
Three levels of place
- Country
- 54 African countries
- Admin-1 region
- provinces · states · counties
- Municipality
- the town your borrower is in
- Period
- 1991–2025, annual and seasonal
- Baseline
- 1991–2020
Partial years, flagged
When the newest year is still in progress it is marked “partial” everywhere it appears, in the console, the Parquet files and the API, and it is never allowed to set or break a record until it is complete.
What you can do with it
Questions a risk team can answer on day one.
Observed history is the evidence base a credit committee or supervisor will ask for first: what has happened here, how often, and how bad it got.
Which of our agricultural borrowers sit in regions that had an extremely dry SPI-12 year since 2015?
Filter places by SPI class and year, then join them to your counterparties’ locations.
SPI-12 · admin-1 · your bookHow far above normal was the worst heatwave year where our dairy clients operate?
Compare the record year with the 1991–2020 median for THI and heatwave days, place by place.
THI · heatwave days · record yearDo our losses line up with El Niño years?
Lay ENSO phase over your own arrears or claims history and the local drought and rainfall record.
ENSO phase · SPI · extreme rainHow many working days a year are lost to heat at our mining and construction counterparties?
Count the days above WBGT working limits at each site’s municipality, for every year since 1991.
WBGT · municipality · per yearWhat does a “record year” look like for the stress test we are about to run?
Pick the observed record as the shock calibration, and see exactly which year and which place it came from.
record year · stress testingIs extreme rainfall becoming more frequent in the cities where we finance property?
Read the 35-year series of extreme rain days for each municipality and compare decades side by side.
extreme rain days · 1991–2025
How it feeds stress tests
The observed record is where every physical shock starts.
When you run a heatwave “like a record year” or a drought, the shock is calibrated on this history, and the result keeps the link back to the year and place it came from. How stress testing works.
- 01 · ObserveHazard historyERA5 indicators, 1991–2025, per place
- 02 · CalibratePhysical shockHeatwave like a record year, drought, extreme rain
- 03 · LocateYour counterpartiesSites matched to country, region and municipality
- 04 · TranslatePD and expected credit lossPer counterparty, with a range
- 05 · ReportCET1 capital impactEvery figure traceable back to step 01
See it on your own book
Bring a sample portfolio. Leave with a stress result.
In a working session we run a sample of your counterparties through a physical shock and a transition scenario, and walk you through every step of the chain from hazard to capital.