By Hillary Asemota
Benchmarking at the evolving 100 percent precision of its 2021 Seasonal Rainfall Prediction (SRP) which has characterized the country’s atmospheric landscape and weather phenomenon, the cerebral Director General of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Prof. Mansur Bako Matazu during a recent interactive session with the media attested that the much-talked about Climate Change (CC) is indeed here with us.
Asked on the intensity of impending flood across the country especially at the last quarter, he said confidently, the agency is constantly rolling out and providing updates of its forecast to stakeholders on very short range from daily to weekly basis, stressing, that Nimet had earlier stated in its SRP report that that the period between July and September usually characterized with very busy rainfall activities with enhancement of moisture will be accompanied with a lot of overland flow in form of fluvial flooding known as flash floods or around flood plain areas known as riverine floods.
Matazu, while urging Nigerians to be proactive especially on mitigating the likelihood of accompanying disasters that may arise from the adverse weather phenomenon, he said there are chances of flash floods across the country especially at the turn of August ending.
On the obvious manifestation of climate change activities in the country, he said: “What we are seeing right now is manifestation of our initial forecast with climate changes helping to induced and increased intensity and rains of magnitude of these high impact and extreme events that are becoming more intense.”
As part of NiMet’s inputs from its observatory station, he added that of recent in Katsina, the agency’s station recorded in a single day 100 millimeters of rain, explaining that this has never happened in the last 100 years.
This phenomenon, evidently showed that this extreme event is being driven by climate change.
Acknowledging the emergence of extreme weather activities, he recalled that the average rain in Katsina State in previous years never used to be more than 30 millimeters justifying that that is just 1/3 of what Nguru receive per annum and it is just 1/6 of what Katsina received per annum that was received within a single day.
According to him, this shows that there will be likely incidents of high overland flash floods with a lot of erosion and sediment generation which eventually may causing sedimentation in rivers, water resources and reservoirs.
Asked on the expectation in other regions, he said: “Definitely, and as you may be aware weather moves in zones whether zone C which is categorized into zone C1, C2 and C3 is lying over the Northern parts of the country and that is why we have a lot of rains over the North like in Katsina, parts of Kaduna and parts of Abuja including Niger, Bauchi and kano even as most northern states are receiving their peak activities now which also serves as a source of rivers that goes downstream even to the South.
The NiMet boss, said: “Remember that in the southern parts of the country, NiMet, issued out little dry season forecast that they just came out from but the rains are getting out established even for the second peak in the south and so Nigeria is in the peak of the activities.
“The Northern states will be more vulnerable for now while the southern states will also be subjected to high flooding due to high intensity of rain.
Corroborating the exactitude of NiMet’s 2021 SRP across the country, the agency in a related development on Tuesday in a statement made available to EXTRAORDINAIREnews, said:
“The moderate to heavy rainfall which could lead to flash floods are expected to commence from Tuesday, 24th, through to Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th of August, 2021. It could affect states such as, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe, Kebbi, Niger, FCT, Plateau, Adamawa, Taraba, Kwara, Oyo, Lagos, Ondo, Ogun, Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Benue, Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo, Anambra, Abia and River States.
On mitigating the accompanying disaster, NiMet reinforced that it has issued safety advisory to stakeholders cautioning the public to take heed and avoid damages from rain related hazards occasioned by the predicted flash flood.
Nigerians, the agency added should not treat the current update with kid gloves as the previous three-day forecast issued towards the end of last month was 100 percent accurate with disheartening tales of lives and property affected significantly.
