Visakhapatnam: The Cyclone Warning Centre (CWC) in Visakhapatnam has undergone major modernization over the past five decades and it has been rendering yeomen services to the people of the coastal districts of the state during cyclones.
The CWC started its functioning on September 23, 1974 with Meteorologist Grade-I as in-charge. Though there was a meteorological observatory for several decades prior to CWC, the main weather bulletins used to be issued from Chennai for the Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh coast.
India Meteorological Department(IMD) has developed state-of-art tools for cyclone warning services, and has demonstrated its capability to provide early warning for cyclones with high precision and has earned accolades globally and nationally for a very effective state of art early warning system for monitoring and prediction of cyclones.
Explaining the various phases CWC in Vizag city, former director of CWC- Visakhapatnam Sunanda M said in 1870 a meteoroidal observatory was set up in Vizag city for surface meteorological observations.
Later, the observatory was in the PWD office at Maharanipeta in Vizag city in 1940. It has started pilot balloon observation for taking upper wind data.
During the World War, a forecasting unit was set up in the airport. An American Radiosonde station was added for upper air data. It was manned by the Americans.
In 1944, the station was upgraded with self-recording instruments and the station was headed by meteorologist Dr P Koteswaram. Later the observatory was shifted from Maharanipeta to the Airfield. In October 1948, it was upgraded to class-I. During that period, it was Dependent Meteorological Office (DMO). In between 1949 and 1950, the Pilot Balloon Observatory was shifted to Andhra University campus from Airport. Seismological unit was established in 1961 in the campus. Metax Theodolite was replaced by a Salenia Radar to take upper air observations.
After so many transformations, the Radiosonde unit was shifted to Kirlampudi Layout locality near Andhra University in 1971. Simultaneously, an S-Band (10 cm) JRC make Cyclone Detecting Radar JRC, first of its kind in India was installed in May 1970 on Dolphin’s Nose hill close to the light house in Vizag city.
The Cyclone Warning Centre (CWC) in Vizag city started functioning on Sept 23, 1974. The Japanese JRC radar on Dolphin’s Nose was replaced by EEC radar in May 1982. Surface observatory was shifted to CWC building in 1982.
Initially, the CWC- Visakhapatnam did not have advanced equipment and it had depended on satellites for weather predictions. The Disaster Warning System now known as Cyclone Warning Dissemination system was installed in 1985. Gematronik (Germany) make S-Band Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) was installed on Kailasagiri hill in Vizag city in July 2006 as replacement for Cyclone Detection Radar of Dolphin’s nose, said Sunanda M.
Later, automatic radiation instruments and a new high wind speed recorder were installed in 2009. New GPS system replacing Mark-IV Radio sonde and EEC Radar for taking upper air observations, was installed in May 2009.
In 2017, Nowcast services started at CWC. The inspectorate section started services from 2020 for observatories in north coastal Andhra Pradesh. Agro Advisory Services Unit commenced its services from CWC Visakhapatnam for farmers through AMFUs from June 2021.
The cyclone forecast accuracy has significantly improved in recent years as has been demonstrated during the cyclones. The CWC in Visakhapatnam has been monitoring the weather and issuing special bulletins to disaster managers during the cyclone storms and depression affecting the coastal districts, Dr S Karuna Sagar, scientist at IMD-Amaravati .
