The Ghana Meteorological Agency is warning motorists to drive with caution during the harmattan season.
According to the Head of Forecasting at the Agency, Joseph Portuphy, the country is yet to experience an intense harmattan season.
Mr. Portuphy emphasized the need for drivers to be cautious and practice safe driving habits during the period.
“The worst of the season is yet to come. This is just the preliminaries because visibility has not dropped yet. We will get to a time when visibility will drop to 700 meters, so drivers must be very cautious.
We expect a lot of fog in the morning, and when you get fog, you cannot see ahead of you. So, this is the time we should be using our fog lights in the morning and also reduce your speed so that when there is an object ahead of you, you can easily avoid it.”
Frederick Cudjoe, who is a Senior Meteorologist, also urged Ghanaians to take necessary precautions to prevent accidents during this season.
“We advise that when visibility becomes very poor, especially early in the morning and at dawn, motorists should take necessary precautions, especially by using their fog lights and also driving within the speed limit. Also, people who go to farms, we advise that they take the necessary precautions to prevent any fire outbreak.”
“And then also, since we will be having those particles in the atmosphere, we advise that maybe we can be putting on our nose masks during this period to avoid taking in a lot of that particle into our respiratory systems because we are realizing that we have the dry continental wind invading our country. We expect this condition to last, especially for the entire period of December right from now to the end of December, which will mean that we are going to be getting a lot of this dryness coming from the Sahara and the Sahel regions into our country. Also, the dust conditions will be accompanied by winds coming from the northern part of the continent into our country.”