New Delhi: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) may soon get additional sets of weather observations through AMDAR that can help improve forecast accuracy, particularly when early warning systems are proving to be important in view of increasing instances of extreme weather events.
The AMDAR or the Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay is available for every flight landing or take-off from an airport with the aircraft sensor recording the air temperature, wind speed, direction, barometric pressure, water vapour and transmitting the data to the ground stations.
These reports, available with meteorological departments worldwide, contribute up to 10 per cent in the impact of the numerical prediction model and play a key role in reducing errors in 24-hour forecasts. The other sources of information for the prediction models include the atmospheric data gathered from weather balloons, sea surface temperatures from buoys anchored in the high seas and weather stations across the country.
"Nearly 20-30 per cent of the received aircraft observations are assimilated into the numerical weather prediction models," a senior weather scientist told.