“The #GERD will help improve the water supply & relieve pressure on the Nile River, which supplies the vast majority of the country’s fresh water. Ethiopia faces a drought that is expected to directly affect nearly 20% of its population. ...
In addition to the locust outbreak that has devoured more than 80,000 acres of crops in recent months. The GERD will contribute in regulating the country's water and reducing sediment, expanding ag enterprises, increasing hydroelectric production, and providing flood control.
GERD will be a project providing a positive impact on all countries involved and will help combat food security and electricity and energy shortages, provide more fresh water to more people, and bring stability and growth to the economies of the region.
The Black Caucus in Congress supports peaceful negotiations to implement the #GERD project and is ready to support the African Union and all stakeholders to peacefully reach a mutually beneficial agreement.
~ The Black Rally in the US Congress.
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Today's big picture is a dramatic shot of the Sahara at sunset with a massive storm over Mali and a line of clouds from the heart of Algeria's desert south east to Chad. On the right you can see tonight's storms over the #Ethiopia highlands.
The rainfall in the Western Sahara has just started but it has a few more days to run. In this animation of a simulation you see the precipitable water anomaly, which highlights areas which have much more water than normal for this time of year.
As the UNSC met tonight to discuss the #GERD storms continued to form over Ethiopia's highlands the source of the water which is currently filling the dam.
During the UNSC meeting. Ethiopia's water minister explained how this works. "The filling of the dam is part of the construction process.... When the dam is filled the water either flows over the dam or through the bottom outlets."
The Minister later spoke to media :
Q: (@AJEnglish): Why don't you stop filling the dam?
A: All dams are filling. Why? Because it is the rainy season. In fact it is good to protect from floods. We have bountiful water. It doesn't hurt anyone.
On day 2 of official #GERD filling we have glimpse through the clouds and what looks like a nearly full GERD lake in a recent photograph taken after the spillways were commissioned this year.
This morning's rainfall update thread is attached here.
The thread also looks at a major #DesertRain event to the west of the Horn, over Sudan, Chad and Niger where August/September like rains appear to have come early.
Today's recent rainfall update. 24 hours rainfall across Horn of Africa and Eastern Sahara. There are now reports of flooding in Sudan, which had very heavy rainfall yesterday.
And a live satellite image of the same area from @zoom_earth
And a three day 72hour satellite rainfall estimate for the same area. The green areas over Ethiopia's highlands show rainfall of 2-3 inches (50-75mms) over this period.