THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city residents had a rare opportunity on Friday when the Indian Meteorological Centre here threw open its doors as part of the World Meteorological Day celebrations.
Besides an exhibition on meteorology, the visitors, mainly students of city schools, were introduced to the various activities at the centre, including climate prediction.
“We got a good response to the event. Had it not been examination time, we would have got more student visitors,” said an official of the centre.
On display at the exhibition were various instruments used for climate prediction by the Department. The Hair Hygrograph, which uses human hair for finding relative humidity in the air was one of the highlights of the show.
The instrument has high accuracy and the hair used is of French women since they are less in fat content.
Thermograph used for temperature recording, Anemometer for wind measuring, Wind Vane used to find wind direction were among the displays. Radiometer-sonde, GPS Sonde and Ozone Sonde were the other instruments on display.
The visitors also got a chance to learn the activities at the observatory where the temperature and rainfall recordings are done. The Single Stevenson Screen which has four types of thermometers and Double Stevenson Screen are used at the observatory to record atmospheric temperature. The FRP rain gauge used for measuring rain fall and the wireless tower which sends the same data to IMD main centre in Pune were other attractions at the observatory.