Addis Ababa ( Ethiopia Today) February 9, 2023:-The Ethiopian Meteorology Institute is building modern radars capable of identifying rain-oriented clouds and gradually converting clouds into rain by enriching them.
The country has planned to widely employ modern technologies to enrich clouds apart from utilizing natural rainfall to grow crops, the institute’s Director General Fetene Teshome told EPA.
Accordingly, several modern radars are being installed in various parts of the country to single out cloud heaps that can potentially give rain and gradually convert clouds into rainfall by enriching them.
Mentioning the national need for 12 modern radars based on the study, Fetene indicated that radars are being installed in different parts of the country to exhibit meteorological predictions in the coming ten years. Also, commendable jobs have been done in consolidating meteorological predictions in agriculture, water, health, and other related sectors.
“The government is working tirelessly to increase the number of radars from one to eight within the stated period, ten years. To this end, the government signed agreements and collaborated with donor countries.”
Apart from the radar in Bahir Dar, additional radars are being installed in Enewari to follow up on central Ethiopia’s climatic conditions and in Alaba Kolito to observe the Southern part of the country. Also, the installment of another radar at Bako Mountain, Illu Aba Bora Zone to control atmospheric conditions in Western Ethiopia is ongoing.
“These radars would help collect information up to 250 kilometers, and they contribute a lot to the effort geared towards enriching clouds. By doing so, Ethiopia could get rain spraying relevant chemicals.
The director-general further stated that Ethiopia is building a state-of-the-art meteorology institute with an outlay of 1.2 billion. The construction of the ultra-modern facility, which makes Ethiopia the third country in the world next to the U.S. and China to have it, reached 73 %.
As a manifestation of the government’s strong attention to the metrology industry, some 64 and five students are attending second-degree and PhD programs respectively. Currently, Ethiopia is collecting weather information using human labor, automatic airplanes, and radars, he remarked.
