Sierra Leone, Malawi, Others Depend On Nigeria For Weather Forecast
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) has started supporting Sierra Leone, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, and the Gambia with their daily weather forecasting services from Abuja. following its increased capacity.
The five African countries now depend on the Nigerian agency that has also increased the presence of its air pollution monitoring stations across the country with new ones in Sokoto and Maiduguri being installed to track pollution dispersion and provide pollution forecasts
Director-General of NiMet, Mansur Matazu who did not give details of the reliance of the five African countries on the Nigerian agency, stated that it is also saddled with pollution monitoring, causing it to expand its observation stations and also signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with over 20 universities in the country.
Consequent to the enlarged responsibilities, Nimet has acquired 200 additional automatic weather stations which are about to be installed across the country in addition to its increased network of operations and also utilisation of data from such stations and information to help improve the precision of its forecasts“We give glory to God for the inspiration and the support we are getting from our parent ministry which is the Federal Ministry of Aviation.
“We are planning to network other stations that are not being operated such as stations in Nigerian River Basins Authority stations, Water Boards, and other critical areas. We are really trying to expand so that we will be able to cover the whole of the country.
This is a continuous process but presently we have done more than 200.”Matazu noted: “We have done a lot of upgrading of the physical infrastructure of synoptic stations across most of the states such as Kebbi, Gombe and so many others of our facilities across the country.
“With regard to training, we have embarked on large scale specialised training for our staff. Since I came in, more than 700 people were trained for one year, to be able to improve their own productivity and effective services.
”Matazu explained that one of the key achievements of the country was the election of Nigeria into the executive council of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which he attributed to the technical assistance and leadership role that Nigeria has been providing on the African continent.
On renovation of crew briefing rooms, Matazu disclosed that NiMet had gotten approval for maintaining and overhauling six low-level windshield systems for the six major airports with the equipment on the ground and it was being installed across the airports.
“We provide a conducive office space environment for the staff across more than 70 locations in the country including all the state capitals and other locations of marine weather stations, upper-air weather stations, and of course some of our critical forecasting stations at the airports.”
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