Doppler Weather Radar - METNET - India Meteorological Department

PREFACE
India Meteorological Department is national weather service provider and is mandated
with taking several of meteorological observations, providing forecast and current
meteorological information for optimum operation of weather-sensitive activities. To accomplish
the above activity, department has a vast array of meteorological equipments for observing
meteorological parameters, their analysis and issuing forecast and warnings. Radar network of
IMD is one of the components of observing system which consists of about 40 radars of various
types and vintage. To keep pace with the emerging technologies, department upgrades the
network with instruments of latest technology. IMD has recently procured 12 sophisticated
digital Doppler Weather Radars from M/s Metstar Radar Co. Ltd. China, the first was installed at
DWR Palam, and consequently five more have already been installed at Hyderabad, Agartala,
Nagpur, Mohanbari and Patna and remaining radars are in the process of installation at other
locations.
The Doppler Weather Radars provide information not only on location, intensity
(reflectivity) and movement of the routine and hazardous weather systems, but also on wind
velocity and turbulence associated with them. This information play very important role in
detecting, tracking and monitoring the severe weather phenomenon and issue forecasts and
warning which help the administration in taking timely remedial action.
In Chapter 1, procedure for operation of Doppler Weather Radar, checking of health of
system, configuring and scheduling of scan strategies, generating of various products, checking
various connectivity for data / product, reception and transmission of data / products to central
server and FTP server etc. are described in detail. The maintenance of inventory of spares, log
registers related to fault and action for their rectification and status register are of great help for
maintenance of Doppler Weather Radars in future. The detailed procedure for maintaining these
details in a systematic way has been described in Chapter 2.
Chapter 3 describes miscellaneous activities like sending latest data / products to FTP
server manually in the event of failure of automatic mode of transmission, copying of data /
products on a storage device, searching files, checking of availability of a particular data file and
various other software commands, which are very often required to be performed at the station.
Also the responsibilities of station in-charge and radar operators are given in Chapter 3.
Servicing related to corrective maintenance of the system with the help of Bitex facility is
described in Chapter 4.
To make the document more informative, various figures and tables have been included in
appendices along with the text. Appendices on Overview of Doppler Weather Radar, System
Characteristics of DWR 98 D/S, Calibration procedures, scan strategies in Doppler Weather
Radars and Safety and Precaution Summary have been included for giving a basic idea of the
system for benefit of the readers.
The document has been prepared as maiden attempt in this direction and may require
further up-gradation / modifications as and when suggestions of operating personnel and other
readers are received to make the SOP document more exhaustive and useful.
i