Jammu, Jan 29: The newly commissioned Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) at district headquarters in the State have largely helped the local administration to avoid any eventualities in the backdrop of unfavourable weather conditions.
 Officials said that nearly 22 AWS installed at various parts of the State provided civil administration real time information to deal with the impending dangers, particularly during the recent heavy snowfall.
 An Indian Metrological Department (IMD) project, it envisaged installation of AWS stations to cover all the 22 districts of J&K enabling the administration to gather a dependable weather data to meet the eventualities.
These sophisticated machines designed to collect information about snowfall, inclement weather, avalanche threats, heavy or scant rainfall, had facilitated the administration to create early warning system this year. Officials said the stations provide hourly weather data pertaining to temperature, humidity, pressure, wind, rainfall and solar radiation.
Though the project was launched immediately after 2005 snow tsunami, which led to loss of human lives and destroyed properties worth crores of rupees, these stations  started functioning only six months back.
Earlier the administration was dependent on the two stations of the IMD based in Jammu and Srinagar and agro-met stations of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agriculture Sciences (SKUAST-Jammu and Srinagar) for the weather forecast.
In Jammu region, these stations have been installed at Doda, Kishtwar, Samba, Ramban, Kathua, Jammu, Rajouri and Poonch.
 “They have greatly helped administration to handle the situation during the heavy snowfall, rainfall and in the aftermath by preparing daily report about the traffic mobility, particularly to the snowbound areas which was not possible earlier. It provided authorities a dependable early warning mechanism”, said an official.
 Officials said that basic purpose of installing these stations was to develop and disseminate accurate data about the changing pattern of the local climate, including temperature, dry spells, incessant rains and snow and provide daily weather reports to the officials in their respective districts.
 “This helped the district administration to regulate the traffic mobility, supplies and the last but not least to guide the farmers with regard to the agriculture activities, including the adoption of crop pattern most suitable to expected climate,” Director IMD-Srinagar, Sonum Lotus told Greater Kashmir.
 Lotus said these units provide hourly data to the field staff and it is also available online. “AWS has greatly helped in allowing us to monitor the changing weather pattern on regular basis. During the winter months, data generated by AWS could also help the people to get information about the weather by logging into the website,” Lotus said.  
 Senior weather scientist at SKUAST-Jammu, Dr M.K Khushu said, “We have another project sponsored by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), allowing linking these machines with satellite so that entire information can be dispatched to a central grid, allowing officials to take decision to avoid disasters. But the project is still at planning stage”, Dr. Khushu said.
 Pertinently in past few weeks, Jammu and Kashmir experienced heavy snowfall which not only cut off Kashmir Valley from the rest of the country, but many upper reaches of Jammu region.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 IST