BHUBANESWAR: India Meteorological Department (IMD) will establish a special flood warning system in the Capital City to prevent waterlogging and urban flooding in low-lying areas. Director General, IMD Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, who was in the city to attend Odisha Disaster Preparedness Day and National Day for Disaster Reduction, said an X-band radar will be set up for this purpose.
“We have planned to instal the radar in five cities across the country including Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad in coming years,” he said and added that installation of this radar will help the Government know where exactly the rain will fall and places likely to be affected with urban flooding.
Mohapatra further said apart from two existing Doppler radars at Gopalpur and Paradeep, two more Doppler radars will be installed in Balasore and Sambalpur for accurate weather updates. “Met department is working on improving its Impact Based Forecasting. Currently, the approach is applied only for cyclones. However, efforts are on to do similar forecasting for heatwaves, thunderstorms, heavy rainfall and floods,” he said. Mohapatra also opined that urban meteorology needs to be strengthened in view of the increasing urban population in the country.