Transitioning to hyperlocal extreme weather forecasting
- The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare have initiated the weather information network and data system (WINDS) to generate long-term, hyper-local weather data.
Key Points
- Accurately predicting rain, cyclones, heatwaves and drought are critical to inform decision making on disaster management.
- In India the Indian Meteorology Department (IMD) is the principal government agency in all matters relating to meteorology
- It specialises in the incredibly complex science of predicting weather patterns by observing, modelling and interpreting a multitude of variables.
- However, in tropical countries like India, weather variability is inherently higher.
- IMD’s forecasts have improved vastly in the last few years as it has upgraded to technologies
- Similar to the ones used by the U.S., the U.K. and Japan, which are known to produce accurate forecasts.
- Yet, there are still many days and geographies for which Indian forecasts go wrong, especially during winter and summer monsoon.
- One of the major hurdles is the lack of weather monitoring ground stations.
- Currently, IMD operates around 800 automatic weather stations (AWS), 1,500 automatic rain gauges (ARG) and 37 doppler weather radars (DWR).
- This is against the total requirements of more than 3,00,000 ground stations (AWS/ARG) and around 70 DWRs.
- Currently, most of the prediction software used in forecasting are based on the global forecasting system and weather research and forecasting models,
- the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare have initiated the
- To generate long-term, hyper-local weather data.
- The system will also promote the data for wider applications in agriculture and other sectors, it will help in creating a national-level data base
Prelims Takeaway
- Indian Meteorology Department
- weather information network and data system (WINDS)