Urban Meteorological Services: IMD launches Urban Meteorological Services in 50 cities

The India Meteorological Department is poised to launch highly localized weather information services in 50 cities across the country, modeled on a similar initiative being implemented in the national capital region. The Meteorological Bureau launched Urban Meteorological Services for Delhi-NCR from 13 weather stations in June last year to provide current observations and early warnings via Nowcast.

“Last year we launched Urban Meteorological Services for Delhi, which provide localized weather data. We plan to launch a similar service for 50 more sites in a year,” Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director-general of India Meteorological Department (IMD), told reporters here.

Metro cities such as Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru are expected to launch urban meteorological services in the first phase, which will later be expanded to other cities.

Under the UMS, the IMD provides current weather observations, air quality observations, weather forecasts, air quality forecasts, district weather alerts and a nowcast.

It also provides district-by-district severe weather event warnings such as Thunderstorm, Heavy Rain in color-coded form that is easy for the general public to understand.