Finding the data provided by Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) inadequate for studying the Capital’s “micro-climate”, Delhi University has set up its own weather station for more accurate and detailed weather updates.
The varsity has also claimed that the weather station, which will record temperature, humidity, wind speed, rainfall and pressure, just like any other monitoring station, is the first-of-its-kind to be established by any educational institution in India.
“IMD is the only agency furnishing public weather data and there are only two stations - Palam and Safdarjung - from which it draws information for Delhi.
Hence, for many areas, the data is not real-time but approximately so,” said Dr R.B. Singh, HOD, DU’s Geography Department.
“Also, it is difficult for scientists and researchers to precisely study the micro-climate and trends of climate change as the data for some areas is vague,” he added.
Saying that in foreign countries, people check weather updates before leaving home and take precautions, Dr. Singh rued it was not possible here “because the data is not accurate and hence the predictions are not up to the mark”.
“The main problem is with the coverage - if more weather stations are set up at smaller distances, more reliable data can be gathered,” he added.
The weather station has been set up on the terrace of Delhi School of Economics at a cost of over Rs 3 lakh.— PTI
