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Journalism of Courage
Daily rainfall from the day monsoon hit the subcontinent is neatly plotted in a bar chart on Indian Met Department Director General S.K. Srivastava’s office. It does not reflect the schizophrenia in the country.
The chart shows that the country as a whole has received more than half of its expected rainfall. The bar falls short of the normal monsoon curve dramatically in the last week of June and July.
Things would not have been bad had the Met department been able to predict any of it. Tough to believe but true: IMD does not have the wherewithall to forecast anything beyond five days with any certainty apart from the seasonal forecast it makes on the total quantum of monsoon rain expected.
But things are set to change. Within six months, IMD will be giving forecasts for 10 days called the ‘‘extended forecast’’. And in the next two years, for 30 days.
This could just be a blessing in disguise for the cash-strapped department. Srivastava put a proposal to PM Manmohan Singh when, in early July, monsoon trough started disappearing into the foothills of the Himalayas and the department drew a blank on whether the situation would improve in the next 10 days. ‘‘Forecasts can’t be made with sketchy data and outdated equipment.’’ said Srivastava.
Minister of Science and Technology Kapil Sibal agreed to give Rs 500 crore to upgrade data collection facilities at IMD.
The Agriculture Ministry caught unawares — from forecast of a ‘‘normal’’ monsoon early this year to a dry July, a month critical for sowing all over the country — offered to help speed-up a long-standing project for developing a mode for ‘‘extended forecast’’ by promising Rs 12 crore.
A project has been given to IIT to devise a model that will provide forecast for an extended range with the least amount of errors. Now the IMD is geared to tell you three things — short-term forecast over two days, medium range that is only accurate till five days and a seasonal forecast. Each of these uses a different model with different global and local parameters.
For this, the IMD will need to upgrade its data collection centres or weather stations at war-footing. Srivastava says that with the financial help promised, they will be able to set up 50 additional offices in a year with modern equipment to collect data on weather parameters. He is aiming for all 600 districts in the next two years.
