Met offices in Rangpur need upgradation
It is difficult to predict the weather in Rangpur division as the meteorological offices here are conducting their operations with analog system equipment. Besides, the only radar in the divisional office, which cover eight northern districts,remained out of order for the last seven years.
There are six meteorological offices at Rangpur, Dinajpur, Kurigram, Panchagarh and Nilphamari’sSaidpur and Dimlaupazilasin the division.
Adverse impacts of climate change have triggered recurrence of natural disasters like storm, flood, drought and earthquake. It has become a major cause of concern and the recent cyclone Fani, which lashed the division, has focused on necessity of upgrading the weather offices with modern equipment and skilled manpower.
Lokman Hakim, meteorological assistantin Saidpur office, said they collect dataon rainfall, highest and lowest atmospheric temperature, humidity, rate of water evaporation, air pressure, wind direction, velocity,upper wind observation and so on but cannot detect natural disaster directly which a radar can do.
“We have to use analogsystem equipment like rain gauge, wet and dry bulb thermometers, evaporation pan, soil thermometer, barometer and so on,” he said, adding that if those are replaced with digital instruments, they would likely to give better results conveniently.
Meanwhile, the only radarset up inthe divisional weather officehas remained out of order for the last seven years, he said.
Mohammad Ali, assistant engineer of the office, saidJapan government set up the radar in 1999 which went out of order in 2005 as thunder bolt struck.
After being repaired by Japanese experts, it worked well till 2012 and since then it is inoperative due to unavailability of spare parts, he said.
MdMostafizur Rahman, assistant meteorologist, and also the in-charge of weather, radar and seismic observatory in Rangpur, saidthe government is going to set up ultramodern radarthere with technical support of Japan which will provide relevant data automatically.
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