21 August 2013
Based on the information available on 21 August, we predict that the flood of 2013 will be not as high as in 2010 and 2012 but not as low as in 2011. The prediction of the flood level is still uncertain, however. Much can change depending on the rainfall in the Upper Niger Basin during the coming week.
It becomes more and more likely that 2013 will be a year with a peak flood level being lower than in most of the years since 1994. The water level in Mopti was in July lower than in other years and only slowly increased in the first ten days of August. The rainy season started late this year, as a consequence of which the water level in Mopti started to increase not earlier than from about 11 August onwards. The increase of the water level since then was relatively fast, nearly 10 cm per day. The fast increase of the water level between 11 and 21 August caused an upgrade of the flood prediction by 22 cm. The recent rainfall in the Upper Niger Basin, and especially in the Upper, Middle and Lower Bani, has been higher than normal for this time of the year. Hence we expect that the water level in Mopti will continue to increase relatively fast in the last 10 days of August which will result in a peak flood level being probably 40-80 cm higher than predicted now from the water level measured in Mopti on 21 August.
