East coast of India to get sixth Doppler Radar for weather forecasting
The cycloneprone eastern coast of India will get a new doppler radar to boost the weather forecasting system.
It will be commissioned by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) in Gopalpur in Odisha which had faced the severe cyclonic storm Phailin in October 2013.
It will be the sixth such radar on the country’s east coast and the other such 5 radars are located in Kolkata, Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Machilipatnam and Paradip.
The move to set up additional radar assumes significance as it will help authorities in taking timely action against cyclones prone to the eastern coast and also help better forecast
Earlier in November 2015, the IMD had installed a doppler radar in Paradip which is another coastal district in Odisha that was ravaged by a super cyclone in 1999.
Doppler radar
- It is an observational tool for monitoring and predicting severe weather events such as hailstorms, thunder storms, cyclones and tornados within a radius of 300 km.
- It uses the Doppler effect by bouncing a microwave signal off a desired target to produce velocity data.
- This data inturn helps in analyzing object’s motion by altered the frequency of the returned signal. It mainly gives information about wind velocity and also about precipitation.
Month: Current Affairs - February, 2016