“Cyclone Man” Mrutyunjay Mohapatra is appointed as Director General of Meteorological Department

 Intents to improve dissemination and give impact-based prediction in all areas

• The India Meteorological Department has appointed scientist Mrutyunjay Mohapatra as its director general, an order issued by the government’s personnel ministry.
• Mrutyunjay Mohapatra is well known as “Cyclone Man” as he and his team at the Cyclone Warning Division of the IMD have earned praise for their accurate forecasts on cyclones, its wind-speed and likely impact on life
• Mohapatra, who is Scientist „G‟ in the IMD, has been appointed as Director-General of Meteorology, IMD, for a period of five years.

Who is Mr.Mrutyunjay Mohapatra?

• Dr. Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, who is affectionately known as „cyclone man of India‟ for having accurately predicted the path of ferocious cyclonic storm Phailin that hit the coast of Orissa in 1999.
• This saved tens of thousands of lives and it was greatly appreciated by national and international agencies.
• Mohapatra was shifted to Delhi in 2002 and asked to oversee the modernization.
• He leads the Cyclone Warning Division (CWD) of the IMD and is well known as „Cyclone Man„ for his cyclone forecasts.
• In past six years, CWD has given accurate forecasts on cyclones such as Phailin (2013), Hudhud (2014) and Titli (2018) which hit the eastern coast
• Mohapatra has seen over forty cyclones in his tenure and claims to minimize loss of life and property
• He is recognized for “predicting cyclones five days in advance the area of occurrence, time and point of landfall, wind velocity and wave height.”

The key focus areas

• He seeks to strengthen the IMD‟s infrastructure and improve dissemination of weather-related information with focus on sector-related forecast and giving impact-based prediction in all areas.
• He aims at accurate and timely prediction it is possible for civil authorities to evacuate people in potential risk areas and reduce greatly human losses associated with cyclones.

What is Indian Meteorological Department (IMD)?

• It is an agency of the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India.
• It is the principal agency responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasting and seismology.
• IMD is headquartered in Delhi and operates hundreds of observation stations across India and Antarctica. Regional offices are in Mumbai, Kolkata, Nagpur and Pune.
• IMD is also one of the six Regional Specialised Meteorological Centres of the World Meteorological Organization.
• It has the responsibility for forecasting, naming and distribution of warnings for tropical cyclones in the Northern Indian Ocean region, including the Malacca Straits, the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf.
• IMD operates a network of hundreds of surface and glacial observatories, Upper Air (high altitude) stations, ozone and radiation observatories and meteorological radar stations.
• Additional data is received from India’s constellation of satellites, such as Kalpana-1, Megha-Tropiques and instruments on board the IRS series and the INSAT series of satellites.

Pic courtesy:The Hans India