Outburst of harmattan causes dry, hazy weather conditions

An outburst of the 2019/2020 harmattan season has caused a sudden occurrence of dry weather conditions all over the country.

The dry and hazy weather is, however, expected to taper off to an end over the weekend.

This was in a release signed by Mr Joseph Portuphy, the Deputy Director, Synoptic Meteorology and Forecasting, Ghana Meteorological Agency, and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Wednesday.

The outburst, which engulfed the country on Wednesday, is the fourth of the season, making the atmosphere very dry and hazy with drastic reduction in visibility of less than one kilometer to a little above three kilometers.

With the current dry and cool continental winds invading the country, and the West African sub-region, relative humidity values will be less than 20 percent over Northern Ghana, 20 to 40 percent over the middle sector, and 25 to 55 percent over the coastal belt, the release said.

It said temperatures would be relatively cool during the night to early morning over the northern half of the country and would be warm in the afternoon with hazy sunshine.

The release urged the public to be careful in handling open fires as there was a high probability of fire outbreaks due to the extreme atmospheric dryness.

It particularly cautioned people who dealt with highly flammable substances such as liquefied petroleum gas to be extra vigilant and warned against setting fires around forests, farmlands and all other places where tiny sparks could cause huge destructive fires.