The committee, comprised of scientists from India Meteorological Department (IMD) and Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, scrutinized records on rainfall, cold-waves and heat-waves of the last three decades to arrive at the recommendations.
An expert committee of meteorologists has suggested a slew of changes to the way weather events are defined and conveyed to the general public including introduction of colour-coded weather warnings, more precise weather forecasts and changing old terminologies to be people-friendly.
The committee, comprised of scientists from India Meteorological Department (IMD) and Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, scrutinized records on rainfall, cold-waves and heat-waves of the last three decades to arrive at the recommendations.
The committee has asked IMD, the national weather bureau agency, to issue forecasts on the "basis of district specific and tehsil specific data along with forecast on the district headquarters." This will be also be accompanied with district maps. Along with providing precise information on weather events, the Met department is also going to introduced colour-coded weather warnings on the lines of air quality alerts.
Based on their intensity and potential impact, rainfall, cold and heat will be signified using red, orange, yellow and green colour-codes. These warnings will be displayed on the IMD website in the coming months. "The weather bureau has enhanced logistical support today in the form of more rain gauges, automatic weather stations and doppler radars. Consequently, we have more data at our disposal and sophisticated technology to interpret it. Thus, we are capable of conveying precise information to the stakeholders such as district administrations and the citizens," said BP Yadav, head, National Weather Forecasting Centre.
Currently, forecasts on rainfall are issued using phrases such as 'rainfall may occur at isolated places' or 'one or two places'. The Met department will have to now dump such phrases and replace it with 'likely' or 'very likely' in their forecasts. Further, the data analysis of past years has prompted the committee to change definitions of rainfall intensity. For instance, 20cms or 200mm of rainfall will now be defines as extremely heavy rainfall against the earlier benchmark of 25cms.
"With time, the relevance of certain benchmarks has changed and the same goes for old terminologies. Since we have more tools, the people should be conveyed precise information," Yadav added.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "Clouds")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}