Sunday, October 4, 2009

70 weather stations to monitor City’s Climate During Games

IMD Puts In Place Mechanism To Correctly Forecast Conditions In Oct 2010

Weather and air quality monitoring and forecasting will form a special component of the planning for Commonwealth Games 2010. Functioning under the ministry of earth sciences, the Indian Meteorological Department has drawn up elaborate plans for the Commonwealth Games which include installing sophisticated equipment at all Games venues and Games Village to provide information and forecast for a period ranging from an hour to the next five days.

The Metropolitan Weather Information and Forecast System for the NCR of Delhi, including Commonwealth Games 2010’ is going to be a permanent project for the city and its surrounding areas with 70 automatic weather stations (AWS) to provide accurate information to organizers, athletes and spectators.

Another wing of the ministry, the Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) at Pune, will be setting up 10 monitoring stations to predict air quality status in a 50-km radius around the Games Village.

The stations will generate highly accurate data for a 4 km by 4 km area a day in advance. The ‘System of Air Pollution Forecasting and Research’ is a first of its kind monitoring programme that will collect and analyze data on air pollution and its causes for the entire country eventually.

The system for the Games will be in place by April and the data generated will be sent to a Mumbai based environment group for any mitigation action that may be required.

Dr S C Bhan, who is heading the IMD project, revealed that 10 AWS are already in place. ‘‘The project is going to be permanent, a part of IMD’s efforts to improve its services. The AWS are capable of taking information every minute and transferring to any location. We will be configuring these to get information every 10 minutes to 30 minutes. While the central forecasting office will be based at Lodhi Road, Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium and the Games Village will have a centre each,’’ Dr Bhan said.

IMD will be tying up with a private agency for help in setting up the equipment, work for which should start sometime early next year. ‘‘We are in constant touch with the organizers and have already provided them with detailed climatological data for the first fortnight of October. With sports having become highly scientific in its management and execution, we realized the need for very accurate weather data for all parties involved in the Games. Our forecasting will range from an hour to five days, each to help organizers and athletes to plan better,’’ said Bhan.

The five-day forecast will give an idea of the possible weather conditions over Delhi and NCR as a whole. The two-day forecast will be slightly more accurate and would be able to predict weather over each district. This will be followed by a 24-hour forecast, and finally the nowcast, a prediction for 1-6 hours.

‘This will be the most accurate and give weather information for specific locations. Data for temperature, humidity, comfort index, wind factor etc will be as essential for athletes to plan their strategies as for organizers in case there is a need to reschedule or even cancel events,’’ added Bhan. Dr Gufran Beg, who is the programme director for the air quality component, said that the 10 stations will not only record the level of air pollutants but also generate data based on weather conditions, terrain
etc to give a holistic idea of how weather pattern and emission sources would affect the air quality at a particular point during the Games.

‘‘There will be monitors at each venue that will predict air quality 24 hours in advance. Since we will start generating data by April, we will have a fair idea of the various factors that will be affecting air quality. Weather patterns, including temperature and wind speed and direction, will play a huge role in determining the level of pollutants. This data will help the agencies concerned to devise a plan to deal with the pollution levels,’’ he said.

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