Union minister Harsh Vardhan
Union science and technology minister Harsh Vardhan

Union Minister for science and technology and earth sciences, Harsh Vardhan has said that his ministry has initiated a service called the ‘Integrated Meteorological Services for the North-East (NE) region’ to enhance the weather and climate services of the northeastern region.

The initiative was adopted under the central sector scheme Atmosphere and Climate Research-Modeling Observing Systems and Services (ACROSS).

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Under this initiative 86 automatic weather stations have been installed in the Northeast.

The Minister said that under this activity, the entire observational network in the northeastern region will be augmented to improve the weather and forecasting skills over the region by commissioning of state of art systems like 8 X-band doppler weather radars, GPS sonde systems, snow gauges.

The ministry will also augment automatic weather stations, automatic rain gauges, etc under this initiative.

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“This will include the setting of observational network required for meeting aviation and other requirements through the commissioning of automated weather observing system/heliport automated weather observing system (AWOS/HAWOS),” Harsh Vardhan said.

The Centre also plans to set up and up-gradation different meteorological centres and other facilities in the region.

Augmentation of the observational network will help fill the data gap areas in the region, leading to better accuracy of forecasts and consequent precision in climate monitoring, analysis and climate prediction.