The Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC), Chennai, has set the ball rolling to procure and replace weather instruments and establish new weather monitoring facilities across Tamil Nadu.
Tender has been floated at a national level to procure 34,400 GPS-based radiosonde for upper-air observations. The upper-air observatory in Chennai has been awaiting the weather instrument for a few months. It is significant to measure and collate weather data on various parameters such as wind direction, pressure and wind speed.
Officials of the Department said at present, the existing pilot balloon observation with manual theodolite is being used to profile vertical atmospheric wind, apart from satellite data and other surface observation network. While the radiosonde instrument will profile wind variability up to a height of 34 km, the pilot balloon observation will give observations up to an altitude of 10 km.
On Saturday, one more automatic rain gauge (ARG) was added to the Meteorological Department’s network. An ARG was inaugurated at the Commissionerate of Municipal Administration, MRC Nagar. At present, there are about 40 automatic weather stations and nearly 75 ARGs in the State.
S. Balachandran, Deputy Director-General of Meteorology, Chennai, said there were 18 ARGs in Chennai and its neighbourhood. The RMC was taking steps to add more facilities to strengthen the urban meteorological services. This will help monitor and provide rain and flood forecast better, given the high variability of rainfall in different areas.
“More ARGs will soon be set up in Maduravoyal, Gowrivakkam and Chromepet. We are approaching the government and educational institutions for sites. The data obtained from the new ARGs will be available online,” he said.
The RMC, Chennai, has called for a tender to procure 200 temperature and humidity sensors for southern States, including Tamil Nadu. With the tendering system decentralised for certain weather equipment, direct procurement has been initiated for some weather sensors and accessories. “We are planning to install high-wind speed recorders in Puducherry and Nagapattinam. There are already five such recorders installed, including in Pamban and Kanniyakumari,” he said. Teams of officials go on up to 25 inspection tours to maintain and repair the existing weather stations and ARGs. Technical testing of the new radar at the National Institute of Ocean Technology, Pallikaranai, is being carried out by ISRO.
“Various types of observational network that are complementary are used for predictions,” Mr. Balachandran added.
.jpg?w=600)
