An advanced system to provide real-time information about the weather at Calcutta airport was inaugurated on Wednesday.

The Automated Weather Observing System (AWOS) was installed and integrated by the Meteorological Watch Office, India Meteorological Department, Calcutta, said an airport official. “It is an integrated aviation meteorological system,” said the official.

The AWOS sensors have been installed at six observing stations on both sides of the two runways of Calcutta airport.

“These sensors will collect all the Met parameters like temperature, wind speed, relative humidity, runway visibility range and cloud height. These will feed real-time data into the system that will process the data centrally to make it available in a composite format,” said the airport official. “It is helpful for the airport operator, Airports Authority of India in Calcutta, to assess the meteorological situation and take a call on aircraft operations,” he said.

Now, the data of various parameters are collected separately by separate systems and provided to the airport operators.

According to an airport official, weather data is available every half an hour. However, during low visibility procedures, the runway visual range data is provided at a shorter interval.

“In the new system, weather variations will be reported instantly which may help reduce delays in aircraft operations,” said a Met official. “Also there are some parameters which were earlier not recorded, would be recorded now. These are cloud heights and wind shear which are important for flight operations,” said the official.

Wind shear is the variation in wind velocity occurring in a particular direction.

Two observing stations each are located at two ends of the runways at touchdown points of aircraft while the third pair has been installed in the middle of the runway.

Flight operations are often delayed due to fog and poor visibility at Calcutta airport, particularly during the winter season.

Operations were affected on Wednesday due to low visibility. Low visibility procedures (LVP) were implemented at airport from 3.40am to 7.40 am, said an official. Take-offs of 10 flights were delayed.

“Flight operations were not stalled but because of LVP, there were delays in the morning flights,” he said. When LVP is implemented, vehicles and aircraft move carefully and slowly in the operational area.

Calcutta airport has Category III-B Instrument Landing System that allows flights to operate at a minimum visibility of 50m. However, on several days flights were delayed as visibility dropped below 50m because of dense fog.