X-band doppler weather radar likely to be set up in Bhubaneswar; entire radar coverage in India in next 2 to 3 years

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has planned new radars across the country, including one at Lahual and Spiti in Himachal Pradesh. Apart from this, Bhubaneswar, Balasore and Sambalpur also features among the several tentative sites where the radars are planned to be installed.

Moreover, the entire country will be under radar coverage within the next 2-3 years. This information was given by Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. 

Tentative sites where the radars are planned to be installed:

X-Band Doppler Weather Radars (DWRs) tentatively at Bhubaneswar, Pune, Kolkata, Purnea, Varanasi, Wayanad, Dharwad, Lahaul & Spiti, Aligarh, Azamgarh, Jhansi, Lucknow.

C-Band Doppler Weather Radars (DWRs) tentatively at Raipur, Mangalore, Ranchi, Lakshadweep, Malda, Aurangabad, Balasore, Sambalpur, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Rupsi & Port Blair.

X-Band DWRs for North East tentatively at Jorhat, Tezpur, Aizawl, Namsai, Silchar, Imphal, Dimapur, Mandala Top, Central Arunachal Pradesh, & Guwahati.

In addition, 53 radars (8 S-Band, 20 C-Band, and 25 X-Band) are also planned to be installed across the country under Mission Mausam so that the entire country is brought under radar coverage.

The locations of the DWRs have been arrived upon considering the gap areas in the coverage of the existing DWR network.

In addition to the proposed improvement in the radar coverage as mentioned above other observation systems like wind profilers, radio sonde/radio wind, microwave radiometers, etc, are also planned under Mission Mausam.

Along with the improvement in the observational network, deployment of high-performance computing infrastructure, advanced Earth system models, and integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies, under Mission Masuam will help improvement in forecasts on various timescales, especially in location-specific nowcast (forecast up to a few hours) to short-range forecast up to 3 days.