simple, specific forecast
Covid-19 cases rise, people gear up to visit friends and relatives for Pongal, but no one checking IMD’s website or app is sure whether to pack an umbrella or sunscreen . Forecast for the city on Friday says: “Sky sky with chances of partly cloudy sky. There is a chance of light rain or drizzle in some areas.
This was also the case at the peak of the monsoon season, with forecasts of a safe scale all criticized by the agency. Weather experts say the vague language, often riddled with officials, should be changed. IMD may have equipment worth crores of rupees, best scientists, may have access to round the clock global weather data but fails to keep things simple and in specific language.
In contrast, the Bureau of Meteorology’s forecast in Australia includes information on the percentage probability of precipitation, the time of day, the expected amount of rain and the strength of the UV ray. Even private weather bloggers use the same IMD data to provide a clear forecast.
more radar
IMD may have to increase its radar network. A good network will help sweep the pulse covering every part of the atmosphere. Nearly two decades of Doppler weather at Chennai port is getting old and meteorologists say radars in Chennai and Karaikal, which can scan the sky within 400 km radius, alone may not be enough to cover the entire state. could.
Experts said that at least two more radars need to be installed in the interior districts. And knowing the current weather will help them improve the forecast. At present, many internal districts are outside the coverage area. Radar is an important tool for tracking cyclones passing over sea and land. Officials said the Chennai radar may cover up to Salem, while districts like Tirupathur, Erode, Coimbatore, Karur and Namakkal have not been covered. Similarly, Karaikal Radar can cover up to Ramanathapuram and areas like Tuticorin, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari are out of coverage area. On 6 January, a calibration experiment was conducted on the new X-band radar installed at the National Institute of Ocean Technology, Pallikaranai, using a drone for the first time. Its radius is within a radius of 150 km.
Widespread use of weather balloons
We may need more weather balloons to study changes in low pressure or upper air to predict the track of a cyclone. They may have captured, in part, a change in the climate bringing 20 cm of rain that brought the city to its knees in early November. Now, weather balloons fitted with GPS-based instruments are flown twice from Meenambakkam and Karaikal to generate upper air data on pressure, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction. The data is important in running weather forecasting models to forecast upper air circulation, the height of a trough and the speed of low pressure systems and cyclones. Meteorologists also said that the accuracy of forecast can be improved if such balloons are flown over the sea, which greatly affects the weather in the state.
better forecasting model
The IMD can use the best forecasting models processed by supercomputers, but a more accurate estimate of rainfall intensity during the monsoon would require a higher resolution model to study all changes in the atmospheric region instead of the current 12 km range .
20 cm of rain on 6–7 November and 10 cm of rain on 30 December can be captured only when models can study a change in a small area because in the vast atmosphere and ocean, a small change in temperature or wind in the upper level. Might be possible. a big impact. The Meteorological Department is now working to upgrade its servers and equipment.
M Ravichandran, Secretary, Union Ministry of Earth Sciences said, “Right now, we are only using the rough model with the highest resolution of 12 km. As extreme weather conditions are becoming more common, we need to come up with a strategy to predict them. Needs to be developed. We have to go for higher resolution models.”
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