The Director-General, Nigerian Meteorological Agency, Prof. Sani Mashi, says the agency is partnering with some institutions to increase the quantity of its network of stations across the country.
Mashi disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja.
He said many privately owned stations established by universities were designed to generate data only for their students and researchers.
He said: “In most cases, those kinds of stations have challenges, especially issues related to calibration to ensure that the equipment is actually functional the way it is supposed to function.
“Calibration is a business of the meteorological service agency.
“For you to be able to calibrate, you must have some infrastructure on ground and somebody must certify you.
“Part of our mandate is to promote the business of meteorology in the country.
“Which means if anybody has a private meteorological station; it is our concern to ensure that the owner of that station is actually doing the right thing and has the right type of equipment.”
Mashi said that NiMet would identify such private stations in the country and give them the needed support to be able to function effectively.
According to him, the agency’s strategy is to expand the network and increase the quantity of its stations by entering into MoU with such institutions.
He also said that the MoU was to ensure that such stations were upgraded and adopted as national stations to increase the agency’s network and national data base.
Mashi said: “If we enter into MOU with them, it means those stations can be adopted as additional national stations so that they can help to add into the network.
“It is like a win-win situation; as the agency, we are winning and owners of those stations are also winning because their stations are being upgraded.
“We are upgrading their capacity to be able to man those stations effectively.
“We have already started with University of Abuja, Ahmadu Bello University and other universities, polytechnics and colleges of Education.
“We are hoping that before the end of the year, (we will have) at least 100 of them (such stations) in the country.
“Any station we are upgrading, (we will) bring them on our network. As soon as that is done, whatever is going on at those stations will be made available to NiMet.
“NiMet will harness and then make the information available to Nigeria.”
Mashi disclosed that NiMet was currently leveraging on meteorological satellites to complement the inadequate number of available weather stations across the country.
According to him, NiMet has adequate satellite coverage all over the country even though it has only a few stations on the ground.
He said: “So with the little ground observations we have been making, we have been linking up with the satellite observations to develop more data.
“As soon as we have satellite observations, we can say a word or two about ground condition of the weather at that particular time.
“Through that way, we are able to give observation about any particular part of the country.”