West Region	East Region

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From October 21-31, 2011, the ITF progressed south over eastern and western Africa resulting in an anomalous southerly position over Africa. The mean western portion of the ITF was located approximately at 11.6 degrees North, which was 1.3 degrees south of the climatology mean and 1.7 degrees south of the previous dekad's position. For a third consecutive dekad, strong northerly winds caused the ITF to propagate further south than normal over West Africa. This led to an early end to seasonal rains across the Sahel and heavy, above-average rains along the Gulf of Guinea. The eastern portion of the ITF was approximated at 10.2 degrees North, which was south of the climatology mean position by 1.3 degrees and south of the previous dekad's position by 2.5 degrees. After a one dekad return towards the climatology mean, the ITF during the past dekad once again was pushed well south of climatology due to strong northerly winds and reduced moisture over eastern Africa. Below-average rainfall was observed across central and western Sudan. Figure 1 shows the current ITF position relative to the climatology position for the third dekad of October and its previous position during the second dekad of October. Figures 2 and 3 are time series, illustrating the latitudinal means of the western and eastern portions 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	11.7	10.1	10.5	11.4	9.7	8.3	7.1	9.5	8.4	7.8	7.4
April 2	10.8	10.9	12.5	12	11.7	9.2	8.6	9.5	8.4	8.8	7.7
April 3	11.2	11.3	12.7	13.5	14	12.1	11.5	11	9	9.2	9.3
May 1	12.2	12.7	13.7	14	14.2	12.1	12.1	11.4	9.2	10.4	10.4
May 2	13.8	14.2	14.8	15.1	14.1	11.7	11.8	11.5	9.9	10.4	11.8
May 3	14.6	14.7	14.9	16.1	16.4	15.1	15	15	14.3	14.6	15.5
June 1	14.8	14.5	15.3	16.7	16.2	14.8	14.2	13.1	11.5	12.4	14.3
June 2	15.6	15.8	16.2	17.7	17.6	16.3	15.5	15.3	12.8	13.3	15.3
June 3	16.7	16.2	17.2	18.8	18.1	16	16.5	15.7	13.9	13.6	14.8
July 1	15.9	16.2	16.7	17.6	17	16.1	16.5	14.9	14.5	14.2	15.2
July 2	17.2	17.5	18	18.6	18.3	17.4	17.6	17.6	14.4	14.9	16.6
July 3	17.9	17.7	18.4	19.5	18.9	17.8	17.5	16.4	15.2	15.9	19.2
August 1	18.4	18.9	19.1	19.4	18.4	17.8	17.9	17.1	16.2	16.8	18.6
August 2	19.7	20.3	20.9	21.2	19.8	19.1	19.3	18.2	17.3	17.3	17.4
August 3	20	19.9	20.7	21.2	19.4	18.8	17.5	16.1	15.3	15.8	17.5
September 1	18	18.6	19	18.6	17.8	16.9	16.4	15.8	15.1	15.5	16.9
September 2	18.3	19	19.3	18.2	17.5	16.3	16.3	16.3	15.4	14.8	16
September 3	17.1	17	17	16.8	15.5	14.1	13.7	13.3	12.2	13.1	15.9
October 1	16.1	14.2	14.2	14.5	14.9	13.6	13.5	13	12.9	13.3	14.5
October 2	14.5	13.9	14	13.9	12.8	12	12	12.1	12.1	12.6	13.9
October 3	13.7	13	12.2	11.8	11.1	10	10.1	10.4	8.9	10.1	11.5