Challenges of Forecasting Weather in the Mountains (E)
"Challenges of Forecasting Weather in the Mountains Among the toughest to forecast accurately are weather patterns in the tropical mountains. Is weather forecasting an art, science or still a lot human skill? Weather forecasting is full of challenges, especially since tropical weather systems are very chaotic. But the challenge gets momentous when it comes to forecasting weather in mountainous regions. The weather observatory in Srinagar is home to some of the best instrumentation to aid weather forecasting including a high tech Doppler Radar. It may come as a surprise, on the streets of Srinagar, the head of the facility in Kashmir Mr Sonam Lotus is often referred to as `Peer Lotus’ for his accurate forecasting skills and approachable nature. From merely giving wide-area forecasts initially, the observatory has now been giving Nowcasts for the Amarnath Yatra route. Climkate change adds to the worries. Predicting extreme weather events like the devastating Kashmir Floods of 2014 is not easy. Mr Lotus, who lived through the unprecedented Kashmir floods tells that they were natural in origin but were exacerbated by rampant and unplanned urban development in flood plains. To get more accurate forecast, India now seeks to deploy a series of Doppler Radars in the Himalayas to predict extreme rainfall events. Mr Lotus, who hails from Ladakh, asserts that climate change is happening and the mountain ecosystems are already witnessing the first impacts."
