The weather prediction Conundrum - Chennai Met. office diaries

Disclaimer: This piece is purely based on facts. All incidents are true and characters are alive. Resemblance to any person is intentional. Any reference to the Chennai Met. office and Met. Dept. are also fully intentional. Chennai Met. office and the Met. Dept. may have trademarks or IP assigned to them which fully belongs to them - no one would want to claim a share of that!!!

I asked my friend Muruks at 5pm if it will rain today. All of my other friends who had come to have tea had a good laugh at my expense when I asked this question. My friends on FB and some of my colleagues with whom I share office space will know my penchant for a free car wash (in the rain). In fact, at some point in the last few weeks I had thought of creating a website freecarwash.com, but was stopped in my tracks when I found one already in place.

So, is weather prediction such a difficult science? How do they do it? Well, though I am not an expert, I have done my Geography course on Remote Sensing in PG and know the basics. There are also several technological advancements in the last few years like the side scan Radar and for extreme situations (cyclones and hurricanes) - weather planes/drones that travel into the storm to pick up information.

But, we are going to talk only about the Chennai Met. office and how I think it functions. Indians in general and Chennaites in particular have this laid back attitude about weather. This I think stems from the fact that we have variations of only one season - hot, hotter and hottest. It rains intermittently for a couple of weeks in October/November (maybe a bit more if there is a cyclone) and thats about it. The so-called 'winter' is just a misnomer if you have seen real winters in the North of India or any other part of the world.

So, how does the Chennai Met. office work? Well the simple answer is - like any other Govt. organization in India. Basic instruments (some from the British era) coupled with some satellite pictures from INSAT, Kalpana or Cartosat. Of course Computers and modeling software are also available, but how often and how well it works is a different story! In spite of all these devices, I still think the Chennai weather for the day is decided based on one of the following methods:

1) Toss of a coin to say whether it will rain or not

2) Look out for crows and dragonflies and predict based on their altitude of flight

3) Inky-pinky-ponky method (my favorite)

4) Picking of lots - from in front of the picture of the rain God, Indra

5) The mood of the Met. Director's wife that morning - angry = rain and thunder

6) Pick a finger on which the choices are pre-determined

If any of you feel I am being unfair to our Met. Dept., I suggest this - listen to the weather report in the morning and you can be sure that the opposite of what is predicted happening by evening that day. People across the world are amazed by the resilience of Chennaiites towards weather - because they always see us going out in the rains without even an umbrella and venturing out in the sun without even a cap. Little do they realize that the credit should go to our Met. Dept. and its erratic weather predictions.

But on a much serious note, the weather this year has been erratic with unseasonal rains in July. The western world would do well to get out of its denial mode and look at its per capita energy consumption figures. So, our already harried weathermen have had a difficult month in July, which might be the flavor for the rest of the year as well.

So, what is the Chennai Met. Dept. good at - giving reasons. Again, like any Govt. organization they give you very good reasons why their predictions failed. ' The SW monsoon was delayed by 10 days from our prediction becuase.....' 'The cyclone changed its course at the last minute because....' 'This summer is hotter than usual because....' Very good at giving reasons and covering their backs.

Best way to get out of this drab, make your own predictions!!! You may feel very awkward and amateurish to start with, but over time you will get better at it and who knows maybe even very good. If at all your predictions fail, you always have recourse to 'because' and remember you cannot be worse than our Met. office.