CRA: Weather in Cocoa Growing Areas to 29 August 2025

West Africa.  Except for widespread rain on 17 Aug in Côte d’Ivoire and moderately common showers in Ghana, rain has been low in the cocoa areas of both origins. Rain in Côte d’Ivoire has been greatest around Man and Soubre-Guiglo, both on the western side of the cocoa area and north of the coast. Veriground stations around Man report 95 mm in the latest 30 days and stations around Guiglo-Soubre report 40 mm. Stations in the southeast corner of Côte d’Ivoire also report almost 40 mm. Stations elsewhere report fewer than 15 mm. Humidity remains 85% or higher everywhere except near Yamoussoukro where it has fallen to 77%.  Rain in Ghana has reached most of the cocoa area with the heaviest rain, 70 mm, during the latest 30 days, along the center coast and inland 25 km. Reports from other areas showed 15-55 mm. Humidity was 82-90%.

Nigeria is seeing much more rain than Côte d’Ivoire or Ghana. The area of lowest rain in West Africa during Jul-Aug has been a disk-like area centered on the Côte d’Ivoire-Ghana border, 100 km inland and bulging southwest toward San Pedro and Sassandra, Côte d’Ivoire. Areas around this disk - Nigeria, Benin, and Togo that lie east of Ghana, Burkina-Faso and Mali that lie north of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, Guinea and Liberia that lie west of Côte d’Ivoire - have seen more rain than the cocoa area in the disk. Rain has been less toward the center of the disk. Too little is known to assess whether this pattern has been or will be common.

Surveys for the Côte d’Ivoire 24/25 main crop of have been only a percent below recent years’ matching surveys. Those made  in Ghana have been down by around 16% but have improved throughout the season so that the latest count is ahead by 11%. This may be due to the wider distribution of rain reported in Ghana.

No changes in other cocoa areas such as Ecuador, Bahia, and Para. CRA has completed charts of long-term temperature change in Bahia and Para like those recently made for Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The trend toward rising temperatures is less in Brazil than in Africa. Rain in Peru and Sulawesi also have been normal. ENSO. NOAA’s Aug report expects neutral conditions to continue with a temporary drift to light La Niña conditions at the end of 2025.