By Frank Ikpefan, Abuja
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency has warned that the Northern parts of Nigeria are more vulnerable to high-intensity rainfall.
Director-General of NiMet Mansur Matazu gave the warning yesterday in Abuja at the ongoing African Swift Testbed-3 Workshop on Nowcasting and Users Co-production.
The NiMet boss said climate change had further worsened the amount of rainfall expected in the region.
He said Northern parts of Nigeria were currently more vulnerable to severe rainfall, adding that the Southern parts would receive their rainfall peak soon.
On flooding, Matazu noted that the period between July and September would have a lot of overland flow in form of flooding.
The NiMet D-G said: “This could be within cities, known as flash floods and all-around flood plain areas are known as riverside floods.
So, what we are experiencing now is the manifestation of our initial forecast which climate change is helping to induce and increase the intensity.
“Just a few days ago in Katsina State over our station, we got a single-day event of over 100mm of rain. That has never happened for the past 100 years and it evidently shows that this extreme event is driven by climate change,” he said.
On the highest average rainfall measurement in Katsina in order to compare it with the 100mm that was recorded in the state recently, Matazu said the average is not more than 30mm.
Mayazu told reporters that the agency has voted N1billion for the procurement of equipment to provide forecasts for the country’s marine sector.
He said NiMet has secured approval from the Federal Ministry of Aviation-the parent ministry for the N1 billion for marine forecast facilities.
The NiMet boss further explained that though the agency was under the Federal Ministry of Aviation, it had been mandated to extend its functions to the marine sector.
Matazu said: “Recently, we rolled out our policy thrust, one of which was to expand services to non-aviation sectors. One of such critical sectors is the marine sector.
“Nigeria has more than an 800km stretch of coastline, with a lot of busy seas around us and shipping activities. So as part of our establishment Act, we were mandated to provide marine forecasts for ocean-going vessels.
“We need to do a lot of installations, especially on highly sensitive instruments to monitor the weather conditions around the coasts. This is a very capital-intensive programme that involves the purchase and installation of tidal gauges and other marine equipment.
“This is just the first phase and we are going to expand by next year. Also, I must state here that this is based on the huge support we are getting from the Federal Ministry of Aviation.”
Leave a Reply