“When the Emerald wood dove calls, the earth prepares to drink”: Community elders lived experiences of indigenous weather forecasting in eastern Mount Kenya region

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BACKGROUND: Indigenous weather forecasting plays a critical role in supporting climate-sensitive livelihoods in Eastern Mount Kenya, yet there is limited empirical understanding of the methods, perceived accuracy, and social mechanisms sustaining their use. This study examines these practices and their contribution to community resilience under increasing climate variability. METHODS: We conducted 81 in-depth interviews with elders aged 65 years and above across the region. Thematic analysis was applied to coded data to identify patterns, indicator types, and perceptions of reliability and resilience, while comparing insights across communities. RESULTS: The study makes three original contributions to ethno-meteorological knowledge which include atmospheric, biological and celestial indicators. In addition, it identifies somatic forecasting as a dominant and systematic knowledge domain, conceptualizing the human body as an environmental sensor within indigenous climate knowledge systems. It also demonstrates that declining reliability of indigenous indicators arises from ecological disruptions, highlighting the vulnerability of indigenous knowledge systems to environmental change. Further, the findings reveal a scale mismatch between scientific forecasts and community-level decision needs, showing that hybrid approaches integrating indigenous and scientific knowledge are more trusted and actionable at the local level. Additional insights include the role of elders as informal climate governance actors and the emergence of intergenerational knowledge loss as a key dimension of climate vulnerability. CONCLUSION: By conceptualizing indigenous weather forecasting as a dynamic, socially embedded, and ecologically grounded system, this study provides empirical evidence that can inform the development of a framework for locally responsive hybrid climate approaches. The results indicate the value of systematic documentation and cultural preservation and point to the potential benefits of integrating such knowledge into policy and climate-service design to enhance adaptive capacity and sustain community-based climate resilience.

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