Identification

Title

Evolution of radar meteorology in India and the latest trends

Abstract

Weather radar is an indispensable tool in the continuous monitoring and warning of extreme events including tropical cyclones and thunderstorms. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has been operating radars since 1949. The evolution of radar meteorology in India may be divided into three broad phases, namely, the 1950s (phase-I), then up to the year 2000 (phase-II), and thereafter (phase-III). During phase-I, radars were imported and installed in cities to aid aircraft operations. Photographs of radar scopes were analysed to provide a broad understanding of temporal evolution and spatial extent of precipitating clouds in different parts of the country and seasons. During phase-II, storm warning (X-band) and cyclone warning (S-band) radars with more power and range were installed, and some of them were indigenous. Phase-III ushered in the era of digital Doppler weather radars in India. Interfacing between numerical models and radars started in phase-III including assimilation of radar winds and model verification. Installation and operation of weather radars outside IMD also started in phase-III. Important areas where more work needs to be done include a well-trained workforce in radar meteorology, radar calibration and data standardization, radar area coverage and networking, algorithms for quantitative precipitation estimation using polarimetric products, assimilation of radar products in numerical models, research on cloud physics and dynamics, applications of AI/ML in storm and severe weather nowcasting.  

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7rn3d7r

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2025-01-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

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Constraints related to access and use

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Use constraints

<span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;font-style:normal;" data-sheets-root="1">Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</span>

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-07-10T19:55:02.135995

Metadata language

eng; USA