West Region	East Region

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From May 11 - 20, 2013, the ITF continued its seasonal northward movement and generally remained close to its climatological mean position during middle of May in both the east and west. In the west, the mean western portion of the ITF was approximated 14.9 degrees north, which was considerably higher than the previous dekadal position (May 1) over parts of Senegal, Mali and western Niger, but much lower in position over northeastern Nigeria where precipitation was suppressed. In the east, the ITF returned towards a more normal position (12.5 degrees north) after an anomalous increase in latitude during early May. Figure 1 shows the current ITF position relative to the climatological average for the second dekad of May and its previous position during the first dekad of May. Figure 2 and 3 are time series illustrating the latitudinal mean of the western and eastern portion of the ITF, respectively, and their evolutions since the start of April.

Dekad	15W	10W	5W	0	5E	10E	15E	20E	25E	30E	35E
April 1	11.2	12.0	12.0	12.9	13.3	10.9	9.5	9.6	7.2	6.2	7.6
April 2	10.0	10.9	12.9	15.1	14.4	10.7	8.6	10.0	8.4	8.1	8.6
April 3	8.4	11.1	13.8	15.1	15.7	14.6	12.2	13.6	11.2	9.8	10.0
May 1	11.9	13.5	13.7	14.8	15.6	12.2	12.3	13.5	12.5	12.0	12.1
May 2	14.8	14.3	16.2	16.5	15.1	12.2	13.4	12.5	10.7	11.5	13.3