The automatic weather station in BBAU will collect information relating to temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind speed and direction, solar radiation and atmospheric pressure every hour and would be used by the Center for Physical Sciences to forecast weather. The center will also take inputs from the Indian Space Research Organisation to issue weather forecasts, including that of the arrival of monsoon.
Setting up of automatic weather stations has picked up in the country off late with many private, government and autonomous agencies entering the fray.
Increased awareness regarding weather and easy availability of weather technology at the country’s doorsteps is driving the pursuit for automatic weather stations.
The weather station has been set up by ISRO and is much advanced than other old stations across the state and would provide precise and accurate weather observations. The weather information would be useful for the common people and the student community as well.
The BBAU is one of the youngest central universities in the country and the latest to join the club while Patna University had initiated the process of setting up of an automatic weather station in its campus last year. The weather station was to be put up by the India Meteorological Department.
The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) is however leading in India to have already installed a well spread network of automatic weather stations in Tamil Nadu. The university’s weather network was funded by the Agriculture Department in Tamil Nadu and owns the Tamil Nadu Agricultural Weather Network than consists of 224 automatic weather stations. The weather stations gather 10 types of agricultural related weather parameters at hourly intervals. This is also available for consumption by public on its website.
In recent times, the Agriculture Department of Maharashtra has also come forward in this domain in setting up a network of more than 2000 automatic weather stations across Maharashtra. These automatic weather stations would be used to record weather data across the state and use it improve agricultural efficiency.