VIJAYAWADA: The Real Time Governance Society (RTGS), which is closely monitoring cyclone Phethai, seems to have become a dependable source of information as it is disseminating regular weather updates by analysing the data from various sources.
Though the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) is releasing timely weather bulletins, they have a limited reach and also their bulletins are usually delayed.On the other hand, RTGS is taking weather forecast related data from ISRO, Sriharikota. The RTGS has signed an MoU to provide data related to weather conditions etc. For weather observations, it relies on IMD data.
For cyclone Phethai, the RTGS with a team of five members under Andhra Pradesh Weather Forecasting and Early Warning Research Centre, (AWARE), is monitoring the observations based on the IMD live data, radars, real time Insat-3D and analysing them.
“We provide weather updates after analysing the IMD data. We don’t follow the IMD bulletins. Our team, with AWARE, constantly monitors various aspects such as meteorology, hydrology, agriculture, weather etc. As of now we are using European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMRF), after trying few other models, as we felt it to be more accurate,” said one of the RTGS scientists.
The other weather websites from State government such as Andhra Pradesh State Development Planning Society (APSDPS) and Andhra Pradesh State Disaster Management Society (APSDMA) failed to provide timely updates.
APSDPA, though it has more number of automated weather stations and advanced equipment, on Sunday failed to give updates on the data on rainfall. N Ramana Murthy of APSDPS said, “All the updates are being given by RTGS. We only provide the data that we have collected on our website. The rains will start from the night of Sunday, so we will be updating once they start.”
