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After succesfully predicting the super cyclone 'Phailin', Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department, LS Rathore in an interview with Aditi Phadnis shares his experience of the challenges faced by the met department. Edited excerpts:
The Phailin disaster was well managed and the met department managed to get it right this time. Were the state governments involved and supportive of all your moves?
The state governments were very co-operative. We had a very good dialogue with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and meticulously planned every action required to combat the disaster. The flow of communication with the media was appropriate as we held six press conferences, which is very important in these times. So it was the overall co-ordination that clicked.
When every international agency was terming Phailin a super cyclone, what made Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) not term this as one?
That requires guts. I am conscious that as a responsible operational forecaster, I have to be as accurate as possible. Informing government and stake-holders is a big decision. So you have to weigh the function of your wrong information. Once you are confident of your forecast, you need courage to stick to it.
This helps save expense and the inconvenience to the public at large. Once you confidently deliver information, people start believing in the institution. So we did the analysis of the facts at our disposal and we were confident of our prediction. One kilometer evacuation means crores of rupees and so much inconvenience to people. When so much it at stake, one really requires courage to deliver.
So how did we manage to predict more precisely than the other agencies?
In every event, we do analysis and there is always some amount of divergence. At the end of the day, it is the operational forecaster who is responsible. Hence, he analyses the situation with greater intensity and monitors even minute details at his disposal. Apart from that, experience also matters. My people have a better grip over the Indian Ocean basin than the Americans. Moreover, India is responsible for eight neighboring countries not just itself. Therefore, we have a mandate. On the other hand, it doesn’t mean that they (the Americans) were absolutely wrong.
Are you saying that India is better equipped than the international agencies?
Yes, we are better equipped in our region because we have extra surface observations and other functionaries which are not available to them.
Other forecasters were saying it is a super cyclone. Were you worried that you were not reading it right?
You cannot sleep. And also, after it happened you could not sleep because of the excitement of coming out with an accurate prediction. At the back of mind, definitely there was a fear. My whole team was tense and none of them could sleep. How can you sleep? We were monitoring conditions every ten minutes; But we were quite confident about our prediction.
What was the biggest challenge that you faced during those tense moments?
The first thing is to get the correct assessment of the ground situation, then to predict it precisely and deliver information to the stake holders, most importantly to gain the faith of the people in the system.
We forecasted it four days early which really worked magic. We were tracking and working on predictions daily and we were hitting bull's eye. So working on short term goals and achieving them made the people believe our forecast. Even the two hour difference that came at the time of landfall… the cyclonic wind came as close as 30 kilometers to the coast and Phailin was stuck there for two hours. During those stressful moment, there were all sorts of rumors. Some said it had reached Andhra and had moved on, while others were anticipating a completely different situation. But we were really confident. Honestly, it was an emotional roller coaster just like at the time of satellite launch.
Even the public's faith in forecast was restored after we came out with accurate predictions daily. It is not an easy task to evacuate people: nobody wants to go until they are really sure they are going to die. So I had to go to the media and make them believe what we are saying is what is going to happen. In Odisha, I got immense response. My name is a household name in Odisha. Everyone knows this is Met department and this is Mr Rathore. Hence, when the administration told them about the forecast, they immediately evacuated.
Another disaster in Uttarakhand rocked the country this year but that was not managed the way this situation was handled…
I would not call the Uttarakhand floods purely a met department disaster. In Amar Ujala newspaper, after our information, the news report on 15th June gave warnings to residents and the tourists. People could have been moved to safer place.
The reasons were quite different in that situation. First, the monsoon had hit early and the snow melt rate was very fast which had compounded resulting into creation of artificial lakes and breaching of the existing ones. The water rushed in all of a sudden and there was a breach of the Dam above.
Do you mean that the state government is to be blamed?
They were also not aware that something of this intensity would trigger.
Does this mean that the disaster was unavoidable?
Yes, it was an unavoidable disaster.
So could not there be a mechanism to predict such a situation?
IMD's task is to predict rains not to tell whose home will be washed away.
Reportedly, the Uttrakhand government said IMD issues these warnings every year…
If that dam wouldn’t have had burst due to high intensity rain, there wouldn't have been so much impact and probably, no casualty as well.
You are saying there was an infrastructure issue involved there?
Absolutely. We informed the state government on time. Then handling the situation is their job.
How can such a situation be avoided?
In mountains where there is denser habitation, we need to monitor the upstream river.
Is it possible under the IMD's ambit to do so?
It is not IMD's job. There is Central Water Commission and other agencies which should do this.
Why can’t the IMD get it right every time – especially when we know that so much is at stake and the majority of our population still depends on the monsoon for agriculture?
You cannot be completely correct no matter what happens and even after 100 years of experiences. We will become God if there is 100% accuracy.
But the prediction rate of monsoon is nowhere even close to 100%…
Cent per cent accuracy can’t happen even in America although the weather there is so much more predictable with extra tropical weather.
But sometimes the IMD gets it wrong all together, like the 2009 drought when the Met department predicted that there would be a normal monsoon but that was nowhere close to the ground reality…
It is true. But the medium range forecast was correct all the time. We do have difficulty in predicting long term rainfall. Atmosphere does not have memory and entire nature changes in six months. In fact, no other country except India is predicting (the weather) on this scale. Had it been easy, others could have done this.
Why can’t we stick to accurate short term predictions instead of wrong long term predictions?
It is a challenging task to address the uncertainty of what will happen in almost three months from now. There are so many things that factor in -- atmosphere which is dynamically moving, strongly coupled with ocean and land, thermal energy, oceanic currents. So you need to factor in everything because everything is dynamic. Science needs to develop to that stage. Our knowledge of ocean is very poor but since the country needs this information, we need to disseminate that and take decisions.
But what if the wrong decisions are taken due to a bad forecast?
If wrong decision is taken, there are mechanisms to correct them. For example, in 2009, we said monsoon will be normal and that did not happen. If June is washed out, then you take stock in July and analyze what will happen at that time. Again if July is washed out too, then you take another decision, but you know you now have a ‘weak’ forecast. There should be someone to communicate that the sowing of a particular crop will not be possible, hence, the farmer moves this seed to some other location or even decides to do away with the crop. There are mid-term correction measures to address all this.
Who needs to act in these areas?
There is a system for that. We have Agromet advisory service; we are constantly working with state agricultural universities and other institutions. The information is then translated into actionable form of advisory and disseminated. Today, 46 lakh farmers are informed through mobile phones. I would say that we are evolving and we have miles to go. But I will still say that 100 per cent accurate prediction of monsoon is not possible at all.
Private forecasters like Skymet often differ with you and come with a different forecast of the monsoon which is sometimes more accurate than yours…
I would not comment on that. It is a democratic country and private forecasters have role to play. But I would just say: how can they predict? To some extent, they are misguiding which is very unfortunate.
