It’s an event, fine-tuned to perfection, with months of planning. Organised on a field, it gets off to a great start. And then, there is a gatecrasher — bad weather. As the guests run for cover from the pummelling rain, the heart sinks. Lesson learnt: An events team is not complete without a weatherperson.
Experience speaks
Students of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM) also learnt this lesson the hard way. In 2015, when Chennai was deluged by unprecedented floods, their pan-India Inter-IIT sports event was washed out.
“It was a big disappointment. As per the rule book, we would get to host the next sports meet only in 2022. Fortunately, our organising committee gave us a second chance, in 2017. This time, we were ready for any curve balls the weather would throw at us,” says Shreyas Chaudhari, a student of IITM and head of the sponsorship committee.
The Weather Company approached the team organising the sports event to come on board as a ‘weather partner’ for the nine-day event that drew students from 23 IITs.
“Although the weather was largely favourable for most part of the event, we saw our weather partners swing into action, before a qualifying cricket match between Mumbai and Chennai. Based on a rain forecast, they encouraged us to have the match postponed by a few hours,” says Chaudhari.
Weather works
The Weather Company, which is run by IBM, serves as an ally to companies that are planning events with huge outlays, the success of which depends on having favourable weather. It uses a system based on the cloud model, and is capable of a micro-level weather forecast. “We can forecast down to a 500 sq metres, 15 days in advance. We get data from various sources, including 3,00,000 weather stations and the Weather Underground app, which is taken through proprietary modelling and predictions and advisory made,” says Himanshu Goyal, India sales and alliances leader, The Weather Company.
Skymet Weather Services, Express Weather and Weather Risk Management are a few Indian companies that are in the business of predicting weather conditions. Based on data, they help organisers skirt any weather-related problems looming on the horizon. “We also help ensure better scheduling of an event by determining the ideal location and time for the event, based on weather data,” says Goyal.
The organiser must provide the date, time, and venue of the event, and weather experts will make their prediction and offer suggestions. Those in the business say forecasting for events is still a nascent industry in India. “We are working on a pilot study for a major cricket league to be held mid-year,” says Mahesh Palawat, vice-president (meteorology and climate change), Skymet Weather. He says the company predicts weather five to seven days in advance. “It hasn’t caught up in a big way for event planning, but we have many clients in agriculture, insurance, marine forecast, and crop advisory,” says Palawat.
The Weather Company is working with select outdoor-adventure companies for trials to ensure weather-based lifestyle and safety advisories. “These activities are on the rise and they need some help from weather experts,” says Goyal.
Individual tracks
Pradeep John, an independent weather forecaster, known as ‘Tamil Nadu Weatherman’, says weather forecasting is not perfect, but we are getting better. “Government data is limited to only major towns. However, there are many private websites which offer a forecast 10 to 15 days in advance, based on latitude/longitude of a particular place,” he says. It may take a while for individuals to avail themselves of the service, say for large weddings, but it is catching up with businesses and institutes.
