The impacts of climate change and climate variability on human life have led the scientific community to monitor the behavior of weather and climate variables at different spatial and temporal scales. This paper explores seasonal and annual trends of rainfall in the Lake Tana basin (LTB) and their teleconnections with global sea surface temperatures (SSTs) over the period between 1979 and 2015. The nonparametric Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimate are applied to the rainfall data collected from the National Meteorology Agency (NMA) of Ethiopia for detecting and estimating rainfall trends. Additionally, Pearson’s correlation coefficient method is used to determine the effect of SST variations on rainfall. The assessment of rainfall trends indicates that the amount of annual rainfall in the Lake Tana basin is increasing, but the rate of increase is not statistically significant. Seasonal analysis reveals that the smallest amount of rainfall occurs in the Bega season, and this season is getting drier with time. However, the analysis indicates that the other two seasons (Belg and Kiremt) are becoming wetter. The rainfall in Kiremt is increasing significantly (significant at the p=0.05 level) in Debre Tabor station with a rate of 10.20 mm/year. Besides, 78.1% of the total annual rainfall in the basin occurs during this rainy (Kiremt) season, whereas Bega and Belg contribute some 9.4% and 12.5%, respectively. Furthermore, the correlation analysis of rainfall and SSTs indicates that rainfall of the LTB is highly affected by the variations of SSTs.

is study presents harmonic analysis of precipitation observations within the Lake Tana Basin for the periods of 1985-2015. e livelihood of several millions of people within the basin and outside the basin is governed by the precipitation conditions within this basin. Large spatial and temporal variabilities of precipitation can increase the incidence of extreme events such as floods and droughts. It is important to identify the characteristics of these variations, and this study aims at investigating the characteristics of the seasonal and annual cycles of precipitation within the Lake Tana Basin using harmonic analysis. Precipitation data of 31 years from four weather stations were used in the analysis. We then applied harmonic analysis to calculate the amplitude, phase shift, and variance of observation. Detailed characteristics of the first five harmonics are presented and discussed. We found the amplitude of the first harmonic to be 173. 42, 177.93, 127.77, and 188.78 mm for Debre Tabor, Bahir Dar, Gondar, and Dangila, respectively. is shows that Dangila areas got more rainfall during this fundamental period than others increasing from Gondar to Dangila direction. Also, the variance in the first harmonic is smaller than the variances of other harmonics, and this means that the large variations of the precipitation originate from higher harmonics (short time periods). is shows that precipitation variations are governed mainly by monthly, seasonal, and semiannual variations. e analysis has shown that maximum precipitation for all stations occurred in July and August.