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| Wednesday, 5 May 2004 |
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The trouble with the weather Ground realities by Tharuka Dissanaike Two weeks ago the Department of Meteorology announced to a dismayed nation that the sweltering heat would continue with little hopes for rain until end May. Groan. A pregnant friend nearly passed out in horror. The stifling humid heat was just too much to bear, and the thought of suffering another month of it overwhelmed her. It did not take two days for the incessant showers to begin. And rain has truly come upon us. Across the country from Trincomalee to Colombo it is raining and it even looks as if the monsoon, which generally makes an appearance around the third week of May, has broken early. A week after this infamous announcement was made, flood threat overshadowed many areas in Ratnapura, Balangoda and Eheliyagoda. Colombo's Met Department stalls critics in their tracks by pleading that tropical weather is difficult to predict and that is why they find it difficult to forecast accurately the state of the country's weather. It appears now that is not the only problem. Surely the weather gods above are all conniving against the poor Department- bringing down rain when dry weather is forecast and imposing drought when it predicts rain. This is a more logical explanation to the Met Department's failure to read the future in weather patterns, than the excuses trotted out by the Department. After last year's flash floods that killed over 250 people and caused billions worth of damage, serious questions were raised over the Department's inability to predict weather and protect lives of people. Why, questioned some, are we maintaining, supporting and paying for the upkeep of a Department that consistently trips over its own forecasts and regularly proves itself wrong? This question will re-emerge now that once again the Department has proved itself totally in conflict with the real weather pattern. The excuse about tropical weather conditions being difficult to predict can hold water if the forecast is off the mark by a few days or a certain degree of accuracy. But this kind of downright inaccuracy calls for some investigation about what is going awry at the Met Department. Henceforth, the media may take to issuing weather forecasts with a disclaimer. The published forecasts are anyway so general, so vague that it basically reads like a fake astrology column. Scattered rains in 'some' parts of the x,y,z,,and provinces... is hardly an indication of what to expect in terms of weather during a given period. It is true the Department is running with many difficulties. Finances, we are told, are a huge problem. Apparently they don't even have money to send up the daily weather balloon out of Colombo- nowadays the balloon is sent up every other day or sometimes just three times a week. A large section of Department land was sold off to an adjoining diplomatic mission hampering their instruments. When Ratnapura was about to flood last year, the Meteorology Department's office there could not report the rainfall reading because the phone lines were out and it took them three days to get the rainfall figures for the flooded town. We do sympathise. But the Department must also realize that they are responsible for giving a fairly accurate inkling of the short-term and long-term weather conditions of the country. Weather is especially important to a country like Sri Lanka where the majority of farmers still depend on rain-fed agriculture and where a large portion of electricity comes from hydro power schemes. |
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