CRA: Weather in Cocoa Growing Areas to 18 Sep 2025

West Africa. Reports from many sources tell that rain in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana has increased. While average rain across the cocoa area has improved, most has fallen in northwest Côte d’Ivoire. Amounts elsewhere have been much less. Too little is known to judge the  effects on the crops.

The charts at right show the average 30-day rain sums at Veriground stations across Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. Rain in Côte d’Ivoire has been gradually increasing such that the 30-day sum at all stations has reached 75 mm. This is less than the average of the preceding five years, 97 mm. The 30-day sum at stations in Ghana never decreased as much as in Côte d’Ivoire but low rain lasted longer and recovered recently, so is only 43 mm after the 80 mm average of the preceding five years.

The distribution of rain has been very uneven. Charts on the next page sketch the differences. Charts that show more detail are at CRA’s Veriground website.

The first chart on the next page shows rain in northwest Côte d’Ivoire, that is, the area around Man and further north as far as cocoa is known to grow, also southeast from Man to Daloa. The second chart shows rain in the center of the cocoa area, between Gagnoa on the west and Agboville on the east and south from Yamoussoukro to Divo. Whereas the 17 sites in the northwest have reported an average of 220 mm during the 30 past days, the 29 sites in the center have reported only 26 mm. Rain in the center has been much less than needed for good development.

Beneath the Veriground charts is a map of rain estimates derived from satellites monitored by the EU Copernicus Programme. The estimates cover 10 days through 16 Sep in squares of about 14 kilometers. The map reveals a major feature of 2025 West African weather. As the Intertropical Front (ITF) has migrated southward during Aug-Sep, that portion of the Front’s rain area over Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana—revealed by the white region--has moved south more slowly than portions westward and eastward of cocoa. Rain has returned to the principal cocoa areas more slowly than in past seasons except in the northwest of Côte d’Ivoire. If comparable maps were available for earlier periods of Aug-Sep, they would show that the white area then was larger than now. The shrinking of the white reflects the change by which rain has been increasing. CRA is building a history of such maps to cover and compare these relationships.