Use weather stations to warn of disasters

According to the Times of India, 19 more people died of suspected heatstroke in western Odisha, 16 people died in Uttar Pradesh, 5 people died in Bihar, 4 people died in Rajasthan and 1 person died in Punjab.
A heat wave prevailed in many parts of Haryana, Chandigarh-Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said it is also occurring in remote areas in parts of Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.
IMD experts found that the temperature reported by the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) sensor at Mungeshpur was “about 3 degrees Celsius higher than the maximum temperature reported by standard instruments”, the report said.
Geosciences Minister Kiren Rijiju shared a draft report on the Mungeshpur incident, which said the maximum temperature recorded by AWS was three degrees higher than standard instruments.
The report recommends that the ground instrumentation department of IMD Pune should regularly test and calibrate all AWS temperature sensors.
It also recommends factory acceptance testing at various temperatures before installing AWS and requires routine routine maintenance of such equipment installed throughout the country.
The IMD said the AWS readings at Mungeshpur were sharp compared to temperatures measured at other AWS stations and manual observations in Delhi.
“Additionally, the maximum temperature at Palam exceeded the record maximum temperature of 48.4 degrees Celsius recorded on May 26, 1998,” the weather department said.
On Friday, the IMD said a sensor failure resulted in elevated temperature readings at the AWS installed at Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth in Nagpur.
The maximum temperature in the Delhi National Capital Region is monitored using five ground observation stations and automatic weather stations.
The maximum temperature observed on May 29 was between 45.2 and 49.1 degrees Celsius, but the AWS system installed at Mungeshpur reported a maximum temperature of 52.9 degrees Celsius.
As of January this year, more than 800 AWSs have been deployed across the country for meteorological observations.