Aug. 25: The Regional Meteorological Centre requires a dense network of rain gauges in Guwahati to provide an accurate picture of rainfall, especially if it is a localised phenomenon like Wednesday’s heavy rainfall which led to massive flooding in several parts of the city.
Deputy director general of the centre, D. Chakravarty, said at least four rain gauges are required to provide an accurate picture of rainfall in the city. The centre, at present, has two rain gauges in the city ? one at Borjhar and the other at Khanapara.
“The problem arises if there is a heavy rainfall like that on Wednesday between these two areas. These two rain gauges will not be able to give us an accurate picture whenever there is a severe localised weather phenomenon,” Chakravarty said.
He said the rain gauge at Borjhar on Wednesday measured 11.3 mm of rainfall and the one at Khanapara measured 38.9 mm which did not reflect the much heavier rainfall taking the Guwahatians in other parts of the city off guard.
“Both the rain gauges were at the periphery of the affected areas, which prevented us from getting an accurate picture,” he said.
He said there are two more rain gauges in the city ? one at Gauhati University and the other one at L.C. Bharali College ? which are not under the control of the centre. “We are also co-ordinating with the people looking after these rain gauges so that we can get a more accurate rainfall data,” he said.
“Both these rain gauges have to be activated properly so as to get information regularly, especially during the monsoon,” he said.
“We might be able to give a better picture by evening today after we get figures from both these sources as well,” he added.
He said metropolitan cities with heavy population density should have rain gauges at a gap of 10 to15 km to get an actual picture of rainfall.
Authorities concerned in Delhi are already working towards increasing the rain gauge network and having automatic weather stations after the Mumbai rains which led to a catastrophe, snuffing out a large number of lives.
