My experience in Trans- Nzoia
By Philip Barasa Wattima
Published: October 8, 2018
The climate of Trans-Nzoia is mild, and generally warm temperate, with precipitation even during the driest month. The average annual temperatures ranging between a minimum of 10°C to a maximum of 27°C.The County receives annual precipitation ranging between 1000 and 1200 mm, with the wettest months being experienced between April and October. Precipitation is lowest at January, with an average of 21 mm. In May, precipitation reaches its peak; with an average temperature of 19.5. March is the hottest month of the year. At 17.2 on average, July is the coldest month of the year. Between the driest and wettest months, the difference in precipitation is 133 mm p.a; and the annual temperature variation is around 2.3℃.
I was assisted with Mr. Raphael Mutitii who is the assistant county management director meteorological services. I started visiting different institution and farmers in general. The field work was so successful. I met both large scales and small scales farmers who were so excited about the project and were so eager to be part of it. All the institutions that I visited were much willing to work with TAHMO and be part of TAHMO society. Apart from that I managed to visit some of the weather station installed in different institutions and how they collect the data, maintain the instrument and share the data. According to most institutions that own the weather stations, there has been poor maintenance of instrument and some were not working at all. Poor maintenance of weather instrument is really of great concern as this will definitely render poor data hence misleading information. For example, evaporation pan at WARMA the black paint has peeled off and yet they still relay on it for that collection. At KMD, the station stopped working two years ago but nothing has been done, same place one station is in the bust environment that you cannot access and read the data comfortably, this is so alarming as KMD is the main weather information distributor but is not leading from the front. Therefore, as TAHMO work with KMD in increasing the number of weather station they should also work in maintaining and servicing those that are already there.
