Met centre to improve weather mapping

BANGALORE: In an effort to improve and enhance weather mapping capabilities, Bangalore Meteorological Centre, India Meteorological Department (IMD), under its modernisation project is installing about 100 Automatic Rain Gauges (ARG) and two Doppler Weather Radars (DWR) across the state.
"By the end of 2011, we are planning to install about 100 ARGs across the State. The ARG station collects data and processes the same in a data logger, which is linked up with the INSAT3A satellite from where every hour the data will be transferred to IMD Laboratory in Pune. From the laboratory the data will be sent to the forecasting centres across the country on hourly basis. The data recorded will be realtime," said B Puttanna, Director, Bangalore Meteorological Centre, IMD.Speaking to Express about the advantages of ARG for the public he said, "The idea behind installing these automatic gauges is to avoid delay in gathering data. It will help to gather data every hour from remote and inaccessible areas, which otherwise takes a couple of days."