We can expect heavy rain for the next few days it seems.
That’s the word from the Fiji Meteorological Services.
The weather office says a trough of low pressure was slow moving over the group with associated cloud and rain expected to affect the country until Thursday.
At midday yesterday a Tropical Disturbance 08F (TD08F) was located to the East of New Caledonia.
Another Tropical Disturbance 07F (TD07F) weakened into a low pressure system and had moved out of the Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre Nadi area of Responsibility at midday yesterday.
We learn that both tropical disturbances have no direct threat to Fiji.
However, as we mentioned earlier, we can expect heavy rain, which according to the weather office should gradually ease over most places from later on Thursday.
It warned, however, that rain has been falling for the past couple of days and with already saturated soil, the risk of landslides, river flooding and flash flooding of low lying areas remained.
Motorists have also been warned about poor visibility on our roads in areas of heavy rain.
In the face of all this, we have been warned about a convergence zone or solid band of clouds hovering over the Fiji Group bringing strong winds up to 50 kilometres per hour over land areas of Northern Viti Levu, Lau and the Lomaiviti groups.
It warned winds of this strength can break tree branches, damage temporary sheds and houses of very light materials.
The strong winds are expected to ease from tomorrow.
The weather office has issued flood warnings, flash flood and heavy rain alerts.
There is also a strong wind warning for parts of the country.
We have been warned.
Lest we forget, bad weather like this hasn’t just popped out of the woodworks.
This is part of our annual weather cycle.
We have a cyclone season that starts in November and stretches through to April every year.
Cyclones are part of our lives.
Perhaps this is an opportunity to relook at our processes on the home front, maintenance around the house, and restock on emergency rations if we do not have that.
It would be a good idea to relook at evacuation plans perhaps, and revisit safety measures with the family.
We live and we learn.
In the face of that, we are reminded about our continuing battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.
We cannot afford to relax our guards.
Some of the rules may have been relaxed which many Fijians would no doubt be happy with.
However, let us remind ourselves that the virus hasn’t gone anywhere far.
So as we protect ourselves against bad weather, let’s keep the virus in mind, and keep our loved ones safe as well.
