All the 31 districts of Telangana will soon be having full fledged meteorological observatories functioning round the clock to check on temperatures, rainfall, winds, humidity and the likes with the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) getting ready to set them up with the necessary infrastructure.
The IMD has three major observatories in Hyderabad, Nizamabad and Ramagundam now. “Initially, we will have complete observatories in the 10 erstwhile district headquarters so that weather forecasting is studied 24 hours and soon expand to the new districts too to cover the entire Telangana,” informed IMD Hyderabad Director Y.K. Reddy on Monday.
These towns right now have basic weather measuring equipment in the observatories mostly located in the district collectorate offices. A employee of the planning department trained by the IMD usually keeps a watch on the rain, wind and temperature gauges in the morning and evening hours. The information is then passed onto the office here for analysis.
But, once full fledged observatories are set up, there would be staff of the department to keep a watch on the changing weather patterns. “What we need is two rooms and sufficient open space for about 20 metres all round without any obstruction. The IMD will be installing all the necessary equipment from its own funds. We will be soon writing to the Government to allot us sufficient space,” he explained.
A complete observatory can also check on the sunrise and sunset along with evaporation rates, clouds formation and the likes, Dr. Reddy said, speaking to this correspondent after giving his inputs at a workshop held for preparing an action plan for TS on climate resilient policies and services in association with various Government departments.
Since the IMD had been issuing weather bulletins for Telangana, Andhra and Rayalaseema, separately for years, the forecasting pattern did not change much after the bifurcation, the director had pointed out. Interestingly, while there is general rise in temperatures as per the global trend, quantum of rainfall has not come down but there more instances of heavy rains in a single day in June and July months over the years.
IMD studies had also shown increasing number of dry spells during the monsoon causing much damage to the farm activities and 30 per cent chance of droughts occurring in this region. Efforts were on to make forecasting more accurate, long range with newer models and getting it to the mandal level.
