Curbs on flights hurt IMD’s weather data collection, IndiGo steps in to help

IMD’s head of climate research and services DS Pai told The Indian Express that the more data that the organisation has, the more accurate is its initial prediction. “There are private flights which voluntarily put their sensors to measure the wind and temperature. There are internationally so many flights. So all of them have take off, cruising and landing data, during which they keep on measuring all the parameters and send it to a central system, which can receive all the data…The more data we have, the more accurate the initial prediction is. So these data includes aircraft data, balloon data, ship data, radar and special observations systems data, together create a better model,” Pai said.

IndiGo has also incorporated a plan for its pilots to report high-level wind and temperature data at different stages of a flight as desired by IMD across all flight operations. The reports by the pilots will capture and share observations at cruising altitude, at midway of the destination, at cruising altitude just before start of descent, at near 10,000 feet, and at near 5,000 feet.

“The data, which is imperative for accurate predictions of weather, has been unavailable to the Indian Meteorological Department since a majority of flights are out of operations due to the nationwide lockdown, coupled with staff constraints,” IndiGo said in a statement. The airline is currently operating cargo flights across the country.

However, Pai said the problem that hit on account of the flight groundings is now being addressed. “It is a temporary phenomenon. Flights have started from some places internationally. Flights which are voluntarily taking observations are still doing that,” he said. The government announced a lockdown on March 24, along with which scheduled commercial flight operations have been suspended. Since then, however, various private airlines and Air India have been conducting cargo operations across the country and to foreign destinations.

Air India has also started operating passenger flights under the Vande Bharat repatriation mission.