11 August 2012

Weather Phenomena and Abnormal Weather Pattern

The Government is monitoring the variability of the weather phenomena and development of abnormal weather pattern like drought, flood, flash flood, cyclone, rain induced landslides, heat cold wave, etc. on a continuous basis. Records of past weather events show that extreme values in respect of heavy rainfall, maximum and minimum temperatures, seasonal rainfall etc. remained unsurpassed in many cases. 
Heavy rain events (>10 cm/day) over central India are found to have increased in the recent decades while weak and moderate events are decreasing. The extreme rain events which are becoming more intense in recent years are localized and could be part of the natural variability of the monsoon system. 

Spatial analysis of changes in temperature reveals that most parts of the country show a warming trend, except north-western parts of the country, where a cooling trend is observed. The occurrence of heat wave conditions is found to be more frequent in May than in June, while very few heat waves occur in the months of March and April. The spatial changes in minimum temperature are found to be decreasing in most parts of Western Ghats and increasing in most parts of Himalayan region and certain parts of the north-eastern region and such warming is confined to winter and post-monsoon seasons. No such pattern is discerned in respect of other weather phenomena. 
India Meteorological Department (IMD) is enhancing its observational network under the modernization plan by installing a network of Doppler Weather Radars (DWR), Automatic Weather Stations (AWS), Automatic Rain Gauge Stations (ARGS), etc. for monitoring abnormal weather patterns and upgrading its forecasting capabilities, so that advance warning can be provided to National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Ministry of Home Affairs, and Ministry of Agriculture to tackle the impacts of the adverse and extreme weather phenomena.
In order to capture the characteristics of the changing weather in real time, state-of-the-art 24X7 monitoring system comprising 14-DWRs, located at Agartala, Chennai, Delhi-Airport, Delhi-Lodi Road, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Machilipatnam, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Visakhapatnam, Lucknow, Patiala and Mohanbari is made functional. Additional DWRs at Bhuj is under commissioning. Current weather information is collected through 675 Nos. of AWS and 775 Nos. of ARGS made functional across the country. 

The above information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Planning, Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Dr. Ashwani Kumar in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.

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