In a first, pilots will receive real-time data on weather

Till now, visibility at the Juhu airport was reported during visual assessment, said Hosalikar. “With AWOS, visibility will be monitored continuously. It will be of great importance to the city during monsoons, the period during which visibility is most affected. It is a great leap in aviation meteorological forecasting,” he said, adding that the Airport Authority of India (AAI) had given clearance for the installation of the system and operation at the desired frequency.

The system will be inaugurated by Shailesh Nayak, Secretary of Ministry of Earth Sciences, in the presence of L S Rathore, Director General, India Meteorological Department, and other senior officials from the IMD and AAI.

The IMD will begin operations from its office at the recently inaugurated Air Traffic Control tower from February 10. Met department officials have been given tablets that are connected to the tower’s wi-fi system. Information on weather conditions likely to be encountered during journey, which will be relayed to pilots, will be available on the tablets.

In another upgradation move, weather stations under IMD Mumbai will now use touchscreen, hand-held data logging (HHDL) device to note readings, compute values and perform quality-control checks on data entered by officers. “With just a touch, quality-checked data will be processed and a message will be sent in near real-time to meteorological centres through SMSes or emails.

The project implemented by IMD Mumbai, that was in its trial phase, will begin operations from Monday,” a Met department official said.

“With the new system, data will reach forecasting stations on time. No duplication of entries, a paperless system of recording data and storage of digital data in the national archive will be its advantages,” said Hosalikar.

IMD Mumbai will also digitise its strip chart data, that are 70-80 years old, so that weather change will now be available to public. Till date, it was not possible for the IMD to provide minute-by-minute update.

anjali.lukose@expressindia.com