Climate variability has a large influence on the lives of the communities in Kenya. The climate elements with the largest influence are rainfall and temperature. Rainfall is, however, the single most important element for the activities of the many of the Kenyan communities who depend on rain-ed subsistence agriculture for their livelihood .

The human being has lived with and experienced climate related disasters throughout the time of his existence. Climate might have been more cruel and hostile in the past millions of years than it is today. Many animals must have perished during that time but man lives by culture rather than instinct in order to remain alive.

. Kenya has two major rainfall seasons experienced in a year with one occurring in March-May(long rains) and the other in October- December (short rains) (EAMD,1962). However, the western Highlands and Coastal areas receive significant rainfall during the period June – August. The failure of a rainfall seasons, as was experienced in 1984, 1999 and 2000, has adverse impacts on the communities in Kenya and at certain times leads to large loses of lives. The excess rainfall, as was experienced in 1961 and 1997/98, also affects the well-being of the communities and at times leads to loss of life and and damage to property and infrastructure. This significance of rainfall made the communities in Kenya, as was over other parts of Africa, to develop their own traditional methods to monitor, predict and even “make rainfall.”
Before the advent of modern scientific methods, the communities in Kenya They must have realized that some animals, birds, insects and plants had the capacity to monitor and detect the changes in the atmospheric conditions and learnt their behaviours as a way of predicting the future climate. The level of human cultural development corresponds to his suffering when a disaster strikes. More people, living in high towers perished when earthquakes occurred than did those of a population with low level of cultural development. Equally, populations with low-level technological cultured development learnt much from the behaviour of plants, animals and insects with high body sensitivity and instincts. They also mastered the positions of stars, the sun and associated shadows and the moon, the wind strength and direction and the cloud position and movement and the lightning patterns. The knowledge about past disasters and climate in Africa are the accumulated experiences that have been handed down to generations through oral traditions.
The “rainmakers” were highly, respected and continue to be held in high esteem, respected people by their respective communities. It is important to understand how they could monitor and predict rainstorms, windstorms, earthquakes, lightning, drought or seasonal rains. The traditional cognitive act is that rain could be perceived, cold or strong wind could be felt, movement of clouds could be seen while thunder and lightning could be heard and seen, respectively. Older members could feel the changes in atmospheric conditions before the eyes and ears could detect anything. Traditionally humankind, must have realized that plants, animals, birds and insects are also affected and could feel changes in atmospheric conditions much earlier. Traditional forecasters recognized that some plants, birds, insects and animals are more sensitive to the changes in the atmospheric conditions than others including human beings. They began to depend on their early behaviour and movements. They also recognized that in every season, some trees shade off their leaves and they marked these trees and periods. They further mastered the position and organization of the strength and direction of wind, the position of the sun and the associated shadows, the patterns of lightning, the conditions of swamps, temperatures as felt by the body and position and movement of clouds. It was through these cognitive acts that marked the sources of traditional knowledge and experience we are beginning to record in Kenya. Sometimes, curiosity and long time observation of what happens around us is what we normally call experience because nature has the habit of repeating itself.

The main objective of the study is to record traditional weather/ and climate monitoring and prediction indicators and establish the scientific interpretation to harmonize them with the modern scientific methods. The study also aimes at learning the terminologies used by the traditional forecastors so as to improve the dissemination of seasonal climate outlooks to their respective communities . The study recognized that the rural communities, who continue to rely heavily on traditional methods and climate outlooks may only understand and interpret the terminologies used by the traditional forecasters.