<p>The reason: Close to 50 per cent instruments required to collect vital weather data have not been in place either due to red-tapism or vendor’s failure to deliver them in time. <br />When the Indian Meteorological Department’s modernisation was planned a few years ago, Rs 300 crore was set aside for issuing “nowcast” during the CWG. <br /><br />This is India’s first experience with nowcasting — a very short-range weather forecasting, covering only a very specific geographic area. The forecast can be issued at an interval of 12 hours or six hours on three hours depending on user requirement and data inputs. <br />Since the system requires monitoring of cloud and wind movement at a few hundred km from a site continuously in real time, the plan was to create a network of observation instruments in such a way that cloud movements at a distance of 400 km could be monitored. <br /><br />The IMD was to deploy three wind profilers at Delhi, Agra and Jaipur; three Doppler radars at Lucknow, Jaipur and Patiala, five lightning detection systems, one upper air radio-sonde and 60 automated weather stations in Delhi and its satellite townships.<br />But less than a month before the CWG, only 30 AWS, one Doppler radar and one upper air radio-sonde has been deployed. The data collected by these instruments are fed into a super-computer, which generate the nowcast in every three hours.<br /><br />“More Dopplar radar and wind profilers would have been definitely useful. But there were problems in procuring them in time,” IMD Director-General Ajit Tyagi said. The met agency was trying to make up by souring data from outside sources. |<br /><br />The Bangalore-based defence public sector undertaking Bharat Elelctronics Ltd (BEL), which along with its foreign partner was to develop the wind profilers, failed to deliver them in time.<br /> <br />Poor planning<br />The IMD has done away with Doppler radars outside Delhi. Instead, it will rely on a new Doppler radar in Delhi for the task. “This is poor planning. With all instruments in place, the nowcasting can be 98 per cent accurate. China did a remarkable job with now-casting at the Beijing Olympic,” a weather scientist who did not wish to be named told Deccan Herald.<br /><br />“We have an optimum number of instruments with which we are giving forecast of 80-90 per cent accuracy. Currently we are supplying it to the CWG through the Cabinet Secretary. From September 13, it will be made public,” Tyagi said.<br /><br />But a section of weather scientists is openly critical about the quality. “Now-cast requires most detailed observation of the atmosphere, which is impossible to get without wind profilers and a network of Doppler radars,” one scientist said. <br /></p>
<p>The reason: Close to 50 per cent instruments required to collect vital weather data have not been in place either due to red-tapism or vendor’s failure to deliver them in time. <br />When the Indian Meteorological Department’s modernisation was planned a few years ago, Rs 300 crore was set aside for issuing “nowcast” during the CWG. <br /><br />This is India’s first experience with nowcasting — a very short-range weather forecasting, covering only a very specific geographic area. The forecast can be issued at an interval of 12 hours or six hours on three hours depending on user requirement and data inputs. <br />Since the system requires monitoring of cloud and wind movement at a few hundred km from a site continuously in real time, the plan was to create a network of observation instruments in such a way that cloud movements at a distance of 400 km could be monitored. <br /><br />The IMD was to deploy three wind profilers at Delhi, Agra and Jaipur; three Doppler radars at Lucknow, Jaipur and Patiala, five lightning detection systems, one upper air radio-sonde and 60 automated weather stations in Delhi and its satellite townships.<br />But less than a month before the CWG, only 30 AWS, one Doppler radar and one upper air radio-sonde has been deployed. The data collected by these instruments are fed into a super-computer, which generate the nowcast in every three hours.<br /><br />“More Dopplar radar and wind profilers would have been definitely useful. But there were problems in procuring them in time,” IMD Director-General Ajit Tyagi said. The met agency was trying to make up by souring data from outside sources. |<br /><br />The Bangalore-based defence public sector undertaking Bharat Elelctronics Ltd (BEL), which along with its foreign partner was to develop the wind profilers, failed to deliver them in time.<br /> <br />Poor planning<br />The IMD has done away with Doppler radars outside Delhi. Instead, it will rely on a new Doppler radar in Delhi for the task. “This is poor planning. With all instruments in place, the nowcasting can be 98 per cent accurate. China did a remarkable job with now-casting at the Beijing Olympic,” a weather scientist who did not wish to be named told Deccan Herald.<br /><br />“We have an optimum number of instruments with which we are giving forecast of 80-90 per cent accuracy. Currently we are supplying it to the CWG through the Cabinet Secretary. From September 13, it will be made public,” Tyagi said.<br /><br />But a section of weather scientists is openly critical about the quality. “Now-cast requires most detailed observation of the atmosphere, which is impossible to get without wind profilers and a network of Doppler radars,” one scientist said. <br /></p>
