Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Earth Sciences of the Union recently established a meteorological centre in the territory of the Ladakh Union. The Meteorological Center will provide weather forecasts for the area and strengthen the weather forecasts’ warning system in the area.
Highlights:
♦ This is the first weather centre in Ladakh. The Meteorological Center is the highest centre in India, located at an altitude of 3,500 meters.
♦ The centre will provide short-term weather forecasts (three days), medium weather forecasts (12 days) and long-range weather forecasts (one month).
♦ It will provide weather forecasts for Kargil and Leh. The centre will also provide weather forecasts for tourist attractions such as Nubra, Drass, Pangong Lake, Kargil, Khalsi, and Changthang.
♦ The main services that these centres will provide include agricultural forecasting, mountaineering, hiking, flash flood warning, road forecasting, and low and high-temperature information.
♦ Due to its extreme climatic conditions, it is very important to establish a centre in Ladakh. Ladakh has experienced extreme weather events such as cloud bursts, flash floods, glacial lakes, avalanches and droughts.
♦ There are four automatic weather stations in Ladakh. The Indian Meteorological Department plans to install more automatic weather stations to improve the observation network in Nubra, Zanskar, Parkachik and other places.
♦ The Indian Meteorological Department has six regional meteorological centres, such as Kolkata, Guwahati, Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai and Nagpur.
♦ Other IMD departments, such as the Agricultural Meteorological Advisory Service Center, the Forecast Office, the Hydrometeorological Office, and the Regional Cyclone Warning Center, are usually located simultaneously as the various observatories.
♦ Kalpana-1 is the first specialized weather satellite launched by ISRO. The INSAT series has also been introduced to meet meteorological requirements and other services such as telecommunications. IMD also operates a network of hundreds of glacier and ground observation stations.
