The water level in Mopti has increased to 432 cm on 10 August. That is high in comparison to all water levels measured on this date in the last fifty years, but it still 40 cm below the water level measured on this date in two years with an extremely high flood, namely 2016 and 2018. This is a first indication that 2020 will be a year with a flood being above average, but not as high as in 2016 and 2018.
The rainfall in the Upper Niger during the last four months promised for this year until last week a very high flood, but the rainfall during the first ten days of August was only a bit higher than normal, by which the earlier prediction of a high flood has to be revised downwards. The forecast for the coming week is an enhanced chance of above-average rainfall in the Upper Niger Basin but also further downstream. So there is still a chance that the flood level will be a bit higher than predicted now.
The flood prediction is still unsure and may vary depending on the amount of rainfall the coming weeks. It is already obvious, however, it will be this year an above-average flood, but since the water level in Mopti has not increased very fast last week and the rainfall in the Upper Niger in early August was not as high as in July it has become now unlikely that the flood will be as high as 2016 or 2018.
