A call made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science for better synergy between the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and private weather agencies is likely to find strong supporters in Kerala.
The reason is that the Kerala Government had made a similar recommendation in 2018 in a letter to the Centre criticising the “inadequate observation network” of the IMD in the State.
The letter written by P.H. Kurian, the then Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue and Disaster Management), to the Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, had noted that private weather companies operated several weather observatories in the State while the IMD network was inadequate.
Prudent path
It suggested a public-private partnership (PPP) where the IMD uses data from private weather networks, provided their stations meet the national weather agency’s standards. The letter, written against the backdrop of the devastating August 2018 floods in the State, described such a partnership as a prudent path.
“The IMD should, as per their Results Framework Document (RFD), scrutinise all weather stations set up by private weather observers and decide on which of these stations are meeting IMD standards and whether data from these are useful for assimilation into the climatological archives of the State. If they are, these data may also be used by the IMD for increasing the weather observation network, for a cost agreement between the IMD and these private weather agencies. A public-private partnership in this regard is a prudent path to achieve the desired data and benchmarks in modelling,” the October 6, 2018 letter noted.
Apparently, there was little action on it and in 2020, the Kerala Government authorised its State Emergency Operations Centre (SEOC) to source inputs from Skymet Weather Services, the IBM Weather Company and Earth Networks.
According to the 2018 letter, the IMD had very few automated rain gauges and gathered daily rain data from “just about 68 stations” in Kerala.
Temperature observations were being collected only from seven observatories. The IMD being the nodal department should have at least 256 rain gauge stations in Kerala (1/150 sq km), it said.
While making its call for better synergy, the Standing Committee on Science has nonetheless underlined the importance of having one authoritative source for weather forecasts.
In recent months, the IMD has, in response to the State government’s persistent demand, increased the number of automatic weather stations and introduced measures to improve localised weather prediction. Ahead of the 2021 southwest monsoon, a Flood Meteorological Office was opened at the IMD Meteorological Centre in Thiruvananthapuram for supporting the flood monitoring efforts of the Central Water Commission.
