When the weather causes anxiety, in the districts and towns, harassed administrators and the impatient public turn quickly to the weatherman. Whether for advice about a possible heat wave, about thunderstorms or hail storms, about extended dry spells, about the possibility of rainfall during a crop sowing period one week distant, it is the local weatherman who has the knowledge and provides the answers.
That weatherman – and weatherwoman, for the service has a number of women scientists – is from the India Meteorological Department, the weather watchers for Bharat.
Theirs is often a thankless task, of poring over the output from instruments and computations, ensuring that the essential information about weather conditions six, 12 or 24 hours hence is transmitted to all those to whom it matters.
Our weathermen scan the skies with their instruments so that they can issue, to airports and airfields all over Bharat, the ‘meteorological aerodrome report’ (or METARs) on which all our commercial flights depend. Our weathermen scan the seas with their instruments to issue the sea weather reports and fleet forecasts for marine traffic in the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, the Andaman Sea and the nearer Indian Ocean.
India Climate portal thanks readers for the appreciative responses to this tribute, and for the comments (below) which we urge the Ministry of Earth Sciences to consider.
Our weathermen scan the atmosphere with the aid of the orbital eyes of our satellites so that, for every single district, an agricultural meteorology forecast is issued every day and for every crop season. Our weathermen scan the routes of the Indian Railway system, the largest and most heavily utilised in the world, for threatening weather conditions that would affect the running of trains. They do this every single day, round the clock.
Today the India Meteorological Department has issued its first forecast for the 2016 monsoon, the Indian summer monsoon, whose patterns have been so well known for all our recorded history. It is a forecast that has been impatiently awaited this year, because of the shortages of water in our river basins, because of the likelihood – as ever – of heat waves, and because we have been so very worried about whether we will get the rains that eluded Bharat in 2015 and 2014.
The short answer is: yes we will. The details of the percentages, the probabilities, the averages, the likely ranges and other ponderables are all over the news. We’d like to compliment the people behind the forecast.
We sincerely thank the women and men of the India Meteorological Department for their extraordinary efforts – every day, week, season and year – to serve us. The IMD today provides us, in the public domain, through the internet, via television, with the help of mobile phone messages, and through smartphone apps, an array of weather services. These scientists, administrators, technicians and field staff have worked as hard to make this range of services available to us as they have worked to understand our ‘mausam’ better. Theirs is a science whose complexity defies the most powerful computing systems available, and they translate what they see into language that guides us as we go about our daily routines. It calls for a breadth of skills that must be applauded.
A sense of history and philosophy guides their work. The scientists and technicians of the Department take as much inspiration from the Upanishads (which contain serious discussion about the processes of cloud formation, rain, and the seasonal cycles) and from Varahamihira’s classical work, the Brihatsamhita, as they do from the insights that they collaborate on today in what is known as earth systems science. It is a remarkable legacy that is very much alive in the offices and field stations of the IMD.
For their work, and as representatives of the widely distributed IMD network of staff, we thank:
Director General of Meteorology, Laxman Singh Rathore; Additional Director General of Meteorology (Research), Bishwajit Mukhopadhyay; Deputy Director General of Meteorology (Upper Air Instruments), Devendra Pradhan; Deputy Director General of Meteorology (Surface Instruments), Rajesh Ramdas Mali; Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Regional Meteorological Centre New Delhi, Anand Kumar Sharma; Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Regional Meteorological Centre Mumbai, K S Hosalikar; Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Regional Meteorological Centre Kolkata, Gakul Chandra Debnath; Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Regional Meteorological Centre Chennai, S Bagulayan Thampi; Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Regional Meteorological Centre Guwahati, Sanjay Oneill Shaw; Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Regional Meteorological Centre Nagpur, P K Nandankar; Head, Agromet Services K K Singh; Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Satmet, New Delhi, Ashok Kumar Sharma; Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Hydromet, New Delhi, Surinder Kaur; Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Services, New Delhi, Brahma Prakash Yadav; Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Organisation, New Delhi, S D Attri; Deputy Director General of Meteorology, EMRC, New Delhi, Sunil Kumar Peshin; and Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Numerical Weather Prediction, New Delhi, Swapan Kumar Roy Bhowmik. Thank you all for a job very well done indeed.
Rahul Goswami
Many many thanks. You are invited to visit RMC Kolkata .
Regards,
Dr. G.C.Debnath
Very kind of you. We would be delighted to visit.
Your article is perfect one, but one fact missing, people who are behind this forecast and the one who collects the basic data in extreme conditions are not getting justice from the department as well as from ministry.
Thank you for the kind words. IMD’s success is a team effort and we urge the MoES to look into these aspects.
In ur report, u r miss out
to mention the Work of Scienctific Asst. who is the backbone cadre of this dept.
Thank you for this clarification. It will help our readers better understand the competencies of IMD.
Theere is one more fact to your article and that is the personnel actually scanning the sky round the clock are deprived of basic facilities such as restrooms, security for the women employees at night and compensation to the health that these people invest to maintain accuracy of data.
Thank you for this observation. IMD’s success is a team effort and we urge the MoES to look into these aspects.
For forecast success IMD back bone staff scientific Assistant playing major role and waiting for first promotion since last 25 yes service, also for the same this cadar fight with the department for getting same.