Fliers to and from Patna would soon get text messages and email alerts up to 12 hours in advance about flight delays owing to foggy conditions.
The Patna meteorological centre is in talks with the headquarters of India Meteorological Department (IMD) to bring the facility into operation from this winter season.
Foggy mornings are being observed in the city almost daily for the past week and weathermen have claimed that the fog cover would prevail for another week.
According to the proposed arrangement, the weather data collected by the Met office, including visibility, temperature and wind speed among others, would be first stored in computers at the Met office using dedicated software.
Through another inter-connected software, the information would be circulated in the form of weather alerts to authorised users, including air traffic controller (ATC), airlines and their passengers.
The IMD has already started the service at Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, but is restricted to the ATC and airlines as of now.
The facility is expected to be extended to fliers very soon.
Patna airport, however, might face a few initial hiccups with regard to implementation of this system.
'Airports in Calcutta and Delhi have sophisticated equipment such as visibility locator. However, mere eye estimate is used at Patna airport to measure visibility. Thereafter, corresponding records are maintained manually. Hence, in order to launch the SMS and email alert system here, we would need to feed the visibility details in the system manually,' said a senior official at Patna meteorological centre.
On Tuesday, the visibility was as low as 500m till 10am and the first flight landed at Patna airport around 1.30pm.
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Calcutta, is likely to be the first airport in the eastern region to have the weather SMS and email alert system in place. 'The new system of SMS and email alert is in an experimental stage at present at Delhi airport. Based on our experience over there, we plan to implement it at other airports depending upon availability of required equipment. A review on this matter is expected to be done at our headquarters in January next year,' said G.C. Debnath, director, regional meteorological centre, Calcutta.
Winter rain
According to experts, winter rain is likely to occur around December 17. Cloud cover would replace the foggy conditions and showers would bring down the maximum temperature by several notches. The rain is expected to be accompanied by wind. Till that time the fog cover would persist.
'The prevailing moist westerlies are blowing at an average speed of 5-6kmph. The level of moisture incursion from westerly winds is getting support from moisture flow from the Ganga, helping the fog cover to sustain. Hazy mornings are expected to prevail for another week,' said R.K. Giri, a meteorologist at Patna meteorological centre.
TECH PILL
What’s new: SMS and email alerts to fliers
Mechanism: Data to be stored at Met office and circulated thereafter to ATC, airlines and fliers
Way forward: Visibility data has to be fed in new weather alert system manually
