Perched atop the 4710 ft (1438 meter) above sea level hill station, the Rs 35 crore laboratory of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MOES) will house state-of-the-art instruments for the observations including a "sky imager" with an additional installation of an X-band radar at nearby Mandhar Devi hill for a continuous monitoring of clouds.
"The cloud bases in the monsoon season are between 1000--1500 m above sea level. Mahabaleshwar, where clouds are at the surface, provides a unique opportunity for observations with an additional advantage that the monsoon clouds formed over the Arabian Sea arrive first over this hill station," said Dr G Pandithurai, project-in-charge scientist of the city-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) which will manage the lab.
Explaining salient features of the lab formally opened last week, he said, "Mahabaleshwar also provides an opportunity to study how winds interacting with mountains produce such heterogeneity in rainfall and long term monitoring of weather parameters at the hill station holds importance in the climate change and environmental studies."
The laboratory, one of the very few in the world, is being described by IITM scientists as a "milestone in the history of atmospheric sciences in India" and a point of prestige also for Maharashtra. (MORE)