At present, there are two Doppler Weather Radars in Kerala — at Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram; after a cyclone warning centre, the three can cover entire state for monitoring of rainfall and severe weather events, and adequately warn the people well in advance
Residents of Pandanad sit at a bus stand surrounded by flood waters from the overflowing Pampa river, in Alappuzha district. (Photo: AFP)
As part of its efforts to create effective weather warning infrastructure and strengthen the post disaster response mechanism in southern states of Kerala and Karnataka, the Centre plans to set up a Cyclone Warning Centre in Thiruvananthapuram in a month’s time.
The move comes in the wake of unprecedented floods in Kerala and parts of Karnataka as a result of long spells of heavy rains that lashed Kerala recently.
“At present, IMD has cyclone warning centres only at Chennai, Vishakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Mumbai…The Centre (in Thiruvananthapuram) will cater to the needs of Kerala and Karnataka. It will be equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure including forecasting tools to issue weather warnings and coastal bulletins (for fishermen, etc.). It will further strengthen the present forecasting activity in India Meteorological Department’s existing office in Kerala,” according to a Ministry of Earth Sciences press note here.
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Besides, plans are also afoot to “set up another CBand Doppler Weather Radar at Mangalore by end of 2019 to cover the northern parts of Kerala. At present, there are two Doppler Weather Radars in Kerala: at Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. With these three radars, the entire state will be covered for monitoring of rainfall and severe weather events, and adequately warn the people well in advance.
IMD has developed many new models and tools right from now casts (2-3 hours) to extended range forecasts (15-20 days’ lead time)”, the ministry note added.
Along with infrastructure development, stress is also being laid on creating awareness and holding of training workshop for the state disaster management authorities of all states.
Towards that objective a meeting of states disaster management and other stakeholders has been planned for September this year “to brief and train them on the new tools and how to make use of them for effective decision making”, the ministry note said.
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