Not many would know that thundershowers and hail that hit the city with gusty winds on Tuesday could have been predicted a bit earlier to alert everyone just on time. This is a fact which is acknowledged by the officials of Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and the hurdle in timely forecast is severe infrastructure crunch that currently makes weather forecasting an uphill task with so many downsides especially in the form of unwarranted criticism.
Thundershowers and hail damaged houses, uprooted trees, rooftops leading to injuries and threw normal life completely out of gear for more than hours as people had to maneuver through roads and waterlogged streets of Ranchi.
The IMD at Ranchi is still battling to get a Doppler radar which is the advance equipment for early detection of weather system developing in the upper strata of atmosphere and is still awaiting delivery of sanctioned equipment called SYNERGY which is getting delayed for unknown reasons.
“Doppler radar would definitely help in providing timely information (to the authorities). We provided information regarding Tuesday’s thunderstorm but we could not provide forecast at short notice. As far as SYNERGY is concerned I don’t know what is stalling its delivery,” said Director and Scientist at IMD Ranchi, BK Mondal.
The IMD had shared the forecast report about thunderstorm with the Disaster Management department. However, officials of the meteorological department confided that the job can be done better if infrastructure constraints and staff crunch are addressed on priority basis.
The weather department relies on storm detection radar to foretell the nature of storm and its characteristics but precision wise it is not a match for advance equipments like a Doppler radar. In the absence of the advance weather equipment the IMD Ranchi uses data feeds generated by Doppler radar at Patna and Kolkata office of the IMD. Besides, the department is also dependent on weather reports that are generated by other offices including the office at Delhi to derive predictions for Jharkhand.
“Weather condition in Jharkhand sometimes develops in an hour. So it is difficult to predict with precision,” maintained Mondal.
Interestingly, the resource-less IMD has an interesting observation but regarding people. Casualty would be much less if people become more aware, said an official of the IMD. Notably, as the forecast goes, the present system of weather will persist over Jharkhand for additional 2-3 days.
Nonetheless, scale of use of information provided by the IMD to State departments such as Disaster Management and agriculture centres for alerting citizens and farmers is yet to be ascertained as thunderstorms with hail continues to wreck havoc whenever it strikes the plateau of Chotanagpur.
“We regularly provide weather bulletin with synopsis to Disaster Management department and many agriculture centres across Jharkhand but they are not active,” said forecast officer at IMD, RK Mahto.
The IMD also supplies vital information to Birsa Agriculture University every Tuesday and Friday which used to create report that is translated into an advisory bulletin for a common man to comprehend and take precautionary measures accordingly. Alas, the BAU’s bulletin takes the route which has its own set of constraints.
“We forward the report to newspapers and to radio. We also display the report to nearby villages to alert people,” said Scientist at BAU, A Wadood.
Meanwhile, the lone weather forecast centre at Ranchi is also battling with poor communication network as it awaits its telephone lines to become active. Almost all landline telephones at IMD Ranchi have been defunct for a very long time.