Meteo Agency admits failure to predict intensity of June 3 rains

The intensity of Wednesday, 3rd June’s rainfall would have been brought to the notice of Ghanaians if the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMA) had sophisticated equipment to do so, a senior official of the weather forecasting body has said.

Speaking to TV3’s Sandra Amarquaye, the senior meteorologist said it was spot-on with its prediction about the rainfall on that fateful day but failed to tell its intensity.

The heavy rains caused disastrous flooding of homes in Accra.

An explosion at a petrol station at near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle during the downpour also exacerbated the loss of lives and property.

Michael Padi called on authorities to resource the Agency in order to complement its predictions with the intensity of rains.

“We were not able to predict that kind of volume of water that will be coming but actually we did predict that we expect some rains,” Mr Padi disclosed to our reporter on Monday, June 8.

“There are no instruments as at now in Ghana Meteorological Agency to be able to measure the amount of water that will come out from a cloud. If we had the radar, we would be able to say that maybe Accra will measure at least 200 millimeters of rains.”

He was also critical of the media, accusing them of ignoring weather warnings at the expense of the citizens.

“I will also like to advise the media to take our forecasts or warnings seriously because sometimes you send a fax on a storm approaching and it will not be aired to people.”

The flood-cum-fire disaster has left the country mourning with an open-air memorial service scheduled to be held on Wednesday at surface zero of the explosion.