Explained: How is monsoon monitored in India and tools used to track it?

New Delhi, May 6: The India Meteorological Department (IMD), an agency of the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India, is responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasting and seismology. It is headquartered in Delhi and operates hundreds of observation stations across India and Antarctica. Regional offices are at Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Nagpur, Guwahati and New Delhi.

It has the responsibility of forecasting, naming and distribution of warnings for tropical cyclones in the Northern Indian Ocean region, including the Malacca Straits, the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf.

How is the monsoon monitored and the tools used for monitoring the monsoon season?

IMD continuously monitors surface and upper air meteorological observations.

It monitors real-time of the monsoon by using remote sensing techniques like satellites and Radars.

It analysis the different meteorological charts.

It seeks guidance from various national and international weather forecasting models at different spatio-temporal scales.

The observational tools used for monitoring monsoon are:

Synoptic observations of various meteorological parameters plotted on appropriate charts viz., mean sea level pressure chart, wind observations at constant pressure levels, geopotential heights, temperature, etc.

Auxiliary charts prepared out of derived parameters, for example, dew point temperature, pressure tendency, anomaly charts of pressure, maximum & minimum temperatures etc.

Satellite imageries

Satellite bulletins

Various derived products from satellite observations, viz. Cloud Top Temperatures, Cloud Motion Vector (CMV) winds, water vapour derived winds, Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR), Quantitative Precipitation Estimates (QPE), divergence-convergence patterns of lower & upper levels, wind shear tendency, etc.

The AWS plotted charts and other products of numerical weather prediction models available on the ftp server.

Some more products of numerical weather prediction models available on Internet from IMD and NCRMWF and other worldwide centres such as UKMO, ECMWF, COLA, NOAA, NOGAPS, JTWC, etc.

Ships and buoy observations.

Weather Radar and Doppler Weather Radar Observations.

Current Weather Observations (CWOs), Aircraft Reports (AIREPs).