SMS weather alerts soon,straight from IMD

By May,people are likely to get weather alerts on their cell phone directly from the India Meteorological Department (IMD). Dr R V Sharma,deputy director general of IMD said,“We are in the process of setting up a transmission centre from where weather alerts can be sent through a variety of communication tools such as radio,television,print media,telephone,fax and so on. The alerts would be sent through our Colaba office. It will enable closer interaction and better connectivity with people and we intend to put this system in place by May.”

The updates will be sent from a specially designed cyclone-warning dissemination system (CWDS) via the INSAT and is expected to provide area specific services even when there is a failure of conventional communication channels.

“A set of 252 analog and 100 digital CWDS receivers have been employed in vulnerable coastal areas in the east and west coast of India,” M Mohapatra,director,IMD,New Delhi said during a recent users workshop on natural disasters.

All possible modes of transmission including telegram,telex,police,wireless networks,web updates and interactive voice response system would be explored,Sharma said.