Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday stressed the need for developing early warning systems for earthquakes while pointing out that advancement in weather forecasting infrastructure of India Meteorological Department (IMD) has significantly reduced human casualties while minimising economic losses caused by cyclones.
While stating that ‘early warning for all’ facility has covered more than 90% of populations through IMD’s forecasts accessible through WhatsApp and through apps like Meghdoot, Modi stated that 10 year ago, only 10% of the farmers and livestock owners used weather-related advisories, while this has increased to over 50%.
“Over the past decade, weather forecasting infrastructure and technology have seen unprecedented expansion, with significant increases in the number of Doppler weather radars, automatic weather stations, runway weather monitoring systems, and district-wise rainfall monitoring stations, all of which have been upgraded,” Modi said at the 150th foundation day of IMD.
Modi stated that India’s meteorological advancements have strengthened its disaster management capacity, benefiting the entire world. He noted that India’s flash flood guidance system provides advanced information to Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
Emphasizing that as IMD’s weather forecasts become more accurate, their importance will increase, he said that the demand for met department’s data will grow across various sectors, industries, and even in everyday life.
Prime Minister Modi launched Rs 2000 crore mission mausam, for which the cabinet had given its nod in September last year. To boost the country’s weather and climate-related research and services, the mission aimed at at boosting country’s weather and climate-related science, research, and services and will help to better equip stakeholders – citizens and last-mile users etc – , in tackling extreme weather events and the impacts of climate change, according to an official statement.
P K Mishra, principal secretary to PMO, speaking at IMD event said “vulnerability to climate change and risk have increased as frequency of cyclones, floods, cloud bursts, our forecasting method need to keep pace with this change earlier trend would not good,”. Mishra stated the met office has successfully given forecasts for cyclone in the last few years which has reduced human and economic losses.
Recently, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, Director General, IMD had told FE “at present we are providing weather forecasts at district and block levels. As we go towards districts to block, our forecast accuracy decreases. Objective to create a forecast system at panchayat levels by 2026 with augmented data sets. Mohapatra had stated improvement in local forecast accuracy in the next couple of years.
Currently with around 39 odd doppler radars, around 84% of the country is covered which provide 15-minute cloud updates. IMD is aiming to get 30 more radars over the next two years in addition 50 more radars would be purchased under monsoon missions which may take total radars in operations to 100 radars at par with USA and China.
Once all the radars are in operation, IMD will provide forecasts of clouds, amount of rainfall, lighting and thunderstorms every 10 minutes.
In addition, IMD has 806 automatic weather stations, 200 agri-automatic weather stations, 5,896 rain monitoring stations, 83 lightning sensors and 63 pilot balloon stations