North-Central and Southern states in Nigeria have been told by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), to expect high-intensity rainfall and riverine flooding in the remaining days of the rainy season.
The Director General of NiMet, Professor Mansur Bako Matazu, made this known while speaking at a workshop organised by NiMet in collaboration with Nigerian Hydrological Service Agency (NIHSA) on Hydro-meteorological status and outlook system (HydroSOS), on Tuesday in Abuja.
The DG, said “it is no longer news to anyone here that water-related hazards and threats have become a global challenge in the face of a changing climate coupled with population growth and increasing socioeconomic activities.
“Every year, water-related hazard affects millions of people globally and causes damage to properties worth billions of dollars. It is expected that water-associated risks are going to intensify in the coming years as the full weight of climate change begins to bear on our earth.”
“From the information, we are getting, we are going to see more floods. And now the rain is concentrating on the North-Central and the Southern states. So there will be a combination of short-duration, high-intensity rain, with riverine flooding.
“We are going to see more of these floods in the north-central states as we have seen in Kogi and also southeastern and southwestern states as we are beginning to see in Anambra and some of the parts of South-West.”
In September 2022 NiMet raised the alarm that based on the rainfall distribution and rainfall amounts recorded in the country during August, “there is a possibility of flooding in some states that have experienced a high amount of rainfall in July and August this year.”
