Current Affairs Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination

Topic: Seven New Doppler Radars in Maharashtra

Why in News?

• In 2021, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) will install seven new doppler radars in Maharashtra, including Mumbai.

Key Points

• Four X-band and one C-band radar will be deployed over Mumbai.
• Ratnagiri will get a new C-band and Vengurla will get an X-band radar, each of which will operate for multiple purposes.

About Doppler Radars

• Doppler radars of varying frequencies — S-band, C-band and X-band — are commonly used by the IMD to detect and track the movement of weather systems, cloud bands and gauge rainfall over its coverage area of about 500 km.
• An X-band radar is used to detect thunderstorms and lightning whereas C-band guides at the time of cyclone tracking.
• The radars guide meteorologists, particularly in times of extreme weather events like cyclones and associated heavy rainfall.
• With the radar observations, updated every 10 minutes, forecasters can follow the development of weather systems as well as their varying intensities, and accordingly predict weather events and their impact.
• The radars can oversee an area of up to 500 km, with effective range of up to 250 km.

Existing Radars

• India’s east coast, which is frequently affected by the cyclones formed in the Bay of Bengal, has radars operational at eight locations— Kolkata, Paradip, Gopalpur, Vishakhapatnam, Machilipatanam, Sriharikota, Karaikal and Chennai.
• Along the west coast, there are radars at Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Goa and Mumbai.
• Other radars are operating from Srinagar, Patiala, Kufri, Delhi, Mukteshwar, Jaipur, Bhuj, Lucknow, Patna, Mohanbar, Agartala, Sohra, Bhopal, Hyderabad and Nagpur.