Weather forecast responsibility: PMD conveys its concerns to PM against NDMA

LAHORE: The director general of Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has conveyed his reservations to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif against National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) for issuing weather forecast, saying that the NDMA has exceeded its domain and mandate of carrying out rescue and rehabilitation operations.

According to sources privy to the development, the PM has assured DG PMD to address his reservations by taking up the issue with chairman NDMA. They said the Ministry of Aviation would also take it up with the NDMA to stop any such expedition on the part of NDMA in future.

It may be noted that the NDMA had predicted on 1st July regarding intense monsoon activity in upper and central parts of the country from 2nd July to 7th July on its website, which the national had carried media by and large.

Sources said the NDMA was issuing forecast by feeding initial weather conditions to the forecast software model in order to get prediction. On the contrary, seasonal forecast can only be made after feeding boundary conditions to the software models, which contains sea surface temperature as well to get more accurate weather forecast. Furthermore, they added, traditional chart based data is also used to ensure maximum accuracy in forecast, as it is impossible to get more than 40 percent accuracy despite observing all the precautions.

Furthermore, they have pointed out that the NDMA has no access to some 200 weather observatories of PMD for weather forecast. It is only the PMD that has access to these observatories to analyze the weather trends before issuing a forecast.

The sources said the NDMA have relied upon those model operators who had attended internship programme of PMD. Interestingly, those amateur model operators has also issued weather forecast for the whole year while feeding data to the software based forecasting models, added the sources.

The PMD sources said both short distance rain and wind varies heavily and cause a difference in impact sometimes after the distance of a meter. The forecast models have their limits in assessing the trend accurately, which is adjusted with the help of past experience and learning process by the PMD staff.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024