Gurugram’s only weather station is not functioning

AN IMD OFFICIAL SAID THE STATION IS NOT WORKING FOR THE PAST 20 DAYS DUE TO LACK OF MAINTENANCE

GURUGRAM: The city received 128mm rainfall on Tuesday – the highest in a day since 2010 – but the city’s only weather station could not record it as it has not been working for more than 20 days now.

The Indian Meteorological Department’s (IMD) automatic weather station (AWS), located at the National Institute of Solar Energy on the Gurugram-faridabad Road, has been set up to supply daily weather data, such as temperature, rainfall and humidity, and is managed remotely by the department.

Tuesday’s rain was measured by a rain gauge at the district revenue office in the Mini Secretariat, from where the data was sent to the deputy commissioner’s office and further relayed to the department of revenue and disaster management, said Vijay Yadav, the district revenue officer of Gurugram.

“The AWS that gives updates on the weather has been out of order for the last few weeks. As the station is managed remotely, the data from the AWS is meant to go to the IMD office in Pune and is then relayed to the observatory at AWS setups across the country, and according to experts, many of them aren’t relaying the weather data properly.

“Many of the department’s AWS stop working from time to time. The equipment is maintained by a contracted third party, due to which there is no Safdarjung. But the Safdarjung sense of urgency to fix them. It office hasn’t been receiving the doesn’t take much time to repair data for almost 20-25 days,” said them,” said an IMD official familSanjiv Kumar Tyagi, a meteoroliar with the matter. Since the IMD ogist with IMD, New Delhi. has installed the AWS, the

Tyagi said that there are probdepartment should also be its cuslems with the network that is todian, he added. used to send the recorded data. He Data from these instruments said that the battery of the device are important for the IMD’S fortneeds to be replaced frequently nightly and weekly rainfall outand it must be recalibrated for it look and other weather predicto function properly. “Lack of tions. maintenance is the reason the This data is used for climate AWS being non-functional,” he research and is shared with the said, adding that the task of mainagriculture department as well. tenance has been assigned to a Gaurav Wahi, a pearl farmer third party. in the city, said that he relies on

An AWS typically consists of a weather predictions for his work weatherproof enclosure, which and the lack of data impacts him contains solar panels that proadversely. “If we are unprepared vide the energy to run the station, when it rains too much or a battery that stores the energy becomes too hot, the mortality generated by the panels and senrate of mussels (livestock) sors — thermometer rain gauge increases,” he said, adding that and a telemetry equipment — to they rely on the IMD for weather send the recorded data to desired updates, and in the absence of locations. continuous and uniform data,

The IMD has a network of 2,000 their business suffers.