Second Doppler radar in Mumbai by December: Ministry of Earth Sciences

The city’s second Doppler radar will be installed and ready by December, the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) said on Monday.

The city’s second Doppler radar will be installed and ready by December, the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) said on Monday.

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A Doppler radar provides long-range weather surveillance, detection and forecast for rainfall, cloud formation, thunderstorms and other weather conditions such as tropical storms. There are different types of Doppler radars. The one currently installed near the Regional Meteorological Centre in Colaba is an S-Band radar that provides surveillance up to 450-500 km. A C-Band radar can provide surveillance up to 250-350 km while surveillance by an X-Band radar is up to 100 km.

On Monday, MoES secretary M Rajeevan, during a virtual press conference on the current status and forecast of southwest monsoon 2020, said the installation of a C-Band Doppler radar is expected to be completed by December.

“The radar is being installed by the Indian Space Research Organisation on MoES’ request. This would be Mumbai’s second radar and would enhance weather predictions and long-range surveillance immensely,” Rajeevan told HT.

He added that but for the Covid-19 pandemic, the installation of this radar would have been completed at Dindoshi, Goregaon around this time.

“Due to the pandemic, there were delays in purchases, basic formalities such as travel, electric work and final physical installation atop a hill in Goregaon. All these works are being undertaken at the moment and the installation will be completed by December,” said Rajeevan.

Meanwhile, Rajeevan highlighted that before next monsoon, Mumbai is likely to have the largest weather network across any city in India.

“Four X-Band radars would be strategically set up in different locations in the city to have spatial coverage of hyperlocal weather changes. Combined with this, we will be adding 30 more rain gauges (instruments to measure rainfall) along with the existing 160 to build infrastructure that will provide weather information for every 500 metres, every 15 minutes,” said Rajeevan. “After delay in shipments from the United States due to the pandemic, we expect four other radars to reach Mumbai early next year,” he added.In June, Mumbai received the integrated flood warning system (iFLOWS-Mumbai), the second one for any urban city in the country after Chennai. Though the system has provided warnings and made public its predictions a few times this monsoon, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), after the extremely heavy rain event on August 5-6 that led to 331 mm rain over 24 hours, said the system was not of much help.

“We have got good responses from the municipal corporation and other state bodies working on this system. We must realise it is being used on an experimental basis and further fine tuning will be done as we progress,” said Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director-general, India Meteorological Department.