The national weather agency will add 25 Doppler radars to its observational network by 2025, augmenting its capacity to predict extreme weather events across the entire country, junior Union minister for earth sciences Jitendra Singh said on Sunday.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has increased its network of Doppler radars — instruments that peek inside air masses for improved rain, snow and storm forecasts — from 15 in 2013 to 37 in 2023 and will add 25 more over the next two years, the minister said.
“The entire country will be covered by the Doppler weather radar network by 2025 to predict extreme weather events more accurately,” said Singh. He was delivering a keynote address at the IMD’s 148th foundation day after dedicating four Doppler weather radars for Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
The plan to augment the Doppler radar network comes at a time weather scientists have documented an increase in the annual average extreme weather events — floods, tropical cyclones, heat waves, cold waves and short but intense spells of rain.
A study of weather data by IMD scientists has indicated that among such extreme weather events, floods have accounted for 46 per cent of weather-linked mortality nationwide between 1970 and 2019, followed by 28 per cent mortality from tropical cyclones.
But the causes of mortality linked to extreme weather are changing, the analysis has also shown.
For instance, deaths from tropical cyclones have reduced 94 per cent over the past 20 years, while deaths from heatwaves have increased by 62 per cent.