S S Samant stands in long grass holding an off-white balloon the size of a baby elephant, ready to release it to the laps of the rain gods. The Indian meteorologist awaits a signal from a colleague atop an office building some 300 metres (yards) away for indication that the hydrogen balloon's weather-reading instruments are transmitting, and then he lets it go.
Balloon launches, done twice a day, every day at 35 stations near airports around India, are crucial in tracking the June-September monsoon, which affects the lives of hundreds of millions of agricultural workers.
This year's monsoon hit the southern Indian coast on June 5, about four days later than normal, broadly as predicted in May.
The balloons, at a cost of more than 6,000 rupees ($138) each, climb 30 km (19 miles) before bursting, sending back readings along the way that also play a big role in making forecasts for weather bulletins and air-traffic controllers.
"Releasing balloons is a very costly affair, but without these observations, we can't do anything. The data is very crucial for us," said M. Rajeevan, a director at the India Meteorological Department in the western city of Pune.
Expensive alternatives to balloons include wind profilers, which cost about $450,000, and India has installed one on an experimental basis. But weather officials say releasing balloons to collect climatic data is still a preferred practice world-wide.
Predicting a monsoon, derived from the Arabic word "mausim" for "season", is a complicated business. Weathermen work with an eight-parameter statistical model that factors in wind, temperature, pressure and even El Nino weather patterns.
Powerful super-computers then analyse billions of figures and satellite pictures in an effort to give an accurate prediction of how the monsoon will turn out, something that becomes a national obsession around this time of year.
Apart from its unparalleled length and intensity, India's monsoon is unmatched in the scale of its economic impact.
While progressive states such as Punjab and Haryana in the north can irrigate almost all their arable land through canals and bore holes, only one-fifth of the farmland is irrigated in Maharashtra, India's wealthiest state.
Overall, two-thirds of India's arable is not irrigated. Agriculture makes up nearly a quarter of the economy, and a weak monsoon wipes out many incomes, shrinking nation-wide demand for both farm equipment and consumer goods.
In short, a failed monsoon can cripple growth. In the year to March 2003, the economy's growth rate fell to 4 percent due to a weak monsoon, but surged to 8.5 percent the next year thanks to bountiful showers across most of the country.
Consequently, India suffers a kind of mass anxiety every year. The stock market ebbs and flows for months depending on the forecast, and bad news makes farmers worry and politicians sweat.
The meteorological department failed twice in its last three forecasts on the annual monsoon.
However, predictions of a normal monsoon turned out to be true for 13 straight years from 1989. "Every time they say the monsoon will be normal. I'm not sure whether they are so accurate or the rain god has blessed us more often," said Parag Srivastava, a manager with Stock Holding Corporation Ltd.
While rains put an end to heatwaves which kill hundreds of people a year, they also bring the misery of floods to others.
The rains vary widely across the vast country. The national rainfall average is 88 cm (35 inches) a year, but some north-western parts get just 20 cm (8 inches), while Cherrapunji in the north-east, gets an average 1,100 cm (433 inches).
The effects of the annual downpour are reflected in the culture, having inspired poets and musicians for centuries. In "Meghdootam" (Cloud messenger), an ancient Sanskrit classic, lyrical poet Kalidas likens the arrival of the clouds to messages sent by a man separated from his beloved.
Comments
Comments are closed.