The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) has said the hazy weather that has persisted across the north for over a week will clear by April 1, 2021.
NiMet disclosed that “the dust situation is expected to persist till Thursday 1st of April when the Saharan high pressure belt is projected to weaken and horizontal visibilities should improve to between 1-3 kilometers over the extreme north.”
A statement by Mr. Muntari Yusuf Ibrahim, the General Manager, Public Relations, said following this, “the region is then expected to experience sunny and slightly hazy conditions over the northern cities, while cloudiness to the south and parts of the central region.”
NiMet said the implication of this is that Nigerians should expect flight operations to run smoothly without fear of delay or cancellation from Thursday, 1st April, 2021 over the extreme north.
It said the present hazy weather conditions being experienced over the north and central parts of the country in the last few days is “as a result of the passage of the midlatitude wave which helped in strengthening the surface pressure over the Sahara Desert region.”
According to the agency, the present dust haze being experienced across the north and central regions of the country resurfaced on Thursday 25th of March, 2021, as anticipated by the CFO in its weather outlook issued on Monday 22nd of March, 2021.
It said this activity resulted in the strengthening and intensification of the Saharan high pressure cell, which progressively pushed down the Inter-Tropical Discontinuity ,ITD, from a latitudinal position of 10.8 degrees north on Wednesday 24th to 7.8 degrees north on Tuesday 30th of March, 2021.
