The weather forecasting department of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) will install a new video conferencing facility later this month to improve its connectivity within the IMD family. This was disclosed by the newly appointed deputy director general meteorology (DDGM), weather forecasting, Medha Khole in her first interview to DNA on Wednesday after taking over reins of this important department on December 1.
Khole said that the city-based weather forecasting office was the nodal unit for all weather forecasting units in the country and the video conferencing facility would make communication more efficient across all field forecasting offices in metro cities and state capitals of the country.
According to Khole, IMD was also keen to fully exploit the two, state-of-the-art French made Synergie workstations that were installed in the weather forecasting department earlier this year.
Khole said that the French systems had enabled 75% of the weather forecasting work to get computerised. The Synergie workstations helped IMD’s scientists view satellite images, numerical weather prediction (NWP) models and weather forecasting charts on the screens simultaneously, making their job quicker and more effective.
However, Khole discounted the chances of a Doppler radar being provided to IMD Pune immediately. According to her, Doppler radars were provided to metro cities which had very large population and where weather changes could effect more people and also to field forecasting units in coastal India which were prone to cyclones. “Pune will eventually get a Doppler radar, but not immediately,’’ Khole said.
Despite her 18 years with the IMD, Khole still considers the Indian monsoon, a mystery. In her usual candid style, she said, “At IMD, we feel every single monsoon is unique and different from each other. It depends on many global parameters like events in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. According to Khole, the most challenging phase of the monsoon is to predict the active and break periods of the monsoon. “Sometimes, the monsoon starts actively, but there is a sudden lull and this is when the agriculture sector gets nervous. This is the most challenging phase for us,’’ Khole said.
In recent years, Khole rates the time when her team was asked to predict the Pune weather during president Pratibha Patil’s Sukhoi jet flight over Pune on November 25, 2009 and the weather in the run up to the Commonwealth Youth Games in 2008 as some of her most challenging assignments. “Given the fact that the president is the supreme commander of the armed forces and was taking a jet flight over Pune added to the challenge. In the other case, the Pune Municipal Corporation who was constructing roads for the Youth Games in 2008 wanted to know precise rain patterns to plan their work. A lot of money was at stake. I remember that our predictions were spot on,’’ Khole said.
Khole who attended the World Meteorological Organisation’s Congress in Geneva earlier this year, considers it a good learning. “You need to be watchful at such conferences in order to protect the country’s interests. It was a wonderful experience to see India champion the cause of developing countries.’’
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