Weather forecast often go wrong in India when compared to other countries. There are many reasons for this.
The most recent forecast regarding the heavy rainfall and danger alerts given during the cyclone ‘Gulab’ turned out to be opposite of it.
To tackle the worst cases, the government issued notices to postpone the exams and declared a holiday for the state. Contrary to this, it did not rain at all.
This kind of situation happened many a times. Whereas, in other countries, the predictions are accurate and on time as predicted.
Lack of Infrastructure
The reasons for such wrong predictions can be many in a country like India. There is total lack of investment in sensors, personnel and complete indifference by the scientists. They lack interest in outreach activities and dissemination.
Outreach Programs
The Scientists in India are more interested in holding summer camps and workshops for school children. They project it as outreach programs. In fact, they show off that they are creating awareness among the future generations of India. They claim that it is their way of serving the country.
Tropical Weather
However, tropical weather is highly unpredictable. The effect are negligible on atmospheric winds and cyclones at the equator.
Moreover, India being a sub-continent and a peninsula surrounded by deep oceans. According to an official in the MET department, there are so many different variables that go into creating a forecast.
He added that if any one of them changes by even the slightest margin, then the weather will change significantly.
Adequate Sensors
Few of them say that weather predictions are insanely complex. There is a need of adequate number of sensors, which India doesn’t have.
It is also said that IMD can’t or won’t buy new devices and refuses to let anyone else buy and share data easily.
Earlier days
In the earlier years of weather forecasting, it was hit and miss case. The accuracy of the forecasts improved as the technology improved over the years.
Unfortunately 100% accuracy at all times is not achievable. This is because the weather forecasting is a science which is based on a chaos theory. However, it is constantly improving.
Messengers only
On the other hand some people argue that, people are more likely to remember the times when the the forecast is wrong.
Finally , all of us have to remember that the meteorologists are just messengers, who inform the public about what they observed at a given point of time.
We also need to remember that with so many elements like -temperature, humidity, cloud cover, rain, wind direction, wind speed and many more, the chances of any forecast for being 100%right is near zero.
