The city will soon get accurate weather forecast, 24 hours in advance.
SAFAR or the System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research — functional only in Pune and Delhi — will give current and 24-hour advance forecast information. Levels of mercury will also be monitored under this system.
Civic officials said officials from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) gave a presentation on it to the municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte earlier this week.
“If we get the forecast 24 hours in advance, it will help us in preparing the disaster control activities. So far, they have failed to communicate alerts about heavy rainfall in advance,” said a senior civic official.
The official added that Kunte was peeved as there was no alert from the IMD on the heavy rainfall on June 9, which saw 181.1 mm rainfall in Santa Cruz. “There was no announcement of onset of monsoon in Mumbai, which caused a delay in commencing the disaster control activities,”said the official, adding that the municipal commissioner then asked the officials to ensure that the IMD submits its alerts timely and promptly.
“Though it is difficult to predict weather accurately, there is a scope for improvement in the current weather forecasting method,” said Kunte. “They have told us that they need some locations across the city for establishing air quality monitoring and weather forecasting stations. We have asked officials to identify such locations in a month.”
The IMD officials said it had started the work of setting up SAFAR in the city. “We need at least 30 to 40 such locations across the city — 10 for monitoring air quality and 30 for recording rainfall. The data will be gathered from these locations which will be used for the forecast. More data will surely help improve the weather predictions,” said NY Apte, deputy director general of IMD.
He added that they are also contemplating to cover Navi Mumbai, Thane and Virar region. “It will help us in issuing predictions for that region also,” said Apte.
About the system
The SAFAR was successfully tested during the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010. Spearheaded by the IITM, it works on four components — setting up a network of air quality and weather monitoring stations, development of an emission inventory, a forecasting model and air quality index.
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