Colour-coded weather warning

Recently India’s Meteorological Department (IMD) issued an orange alert in the Delhi-NCR region.

Details –

In Delhi, the day temperature settled several notches below normal and the minimum temperature plunged to 4.4 degrees Celsius, the season’s lowest and making the national capital colder than Dharamshala, Nainital and Dehradun.

What is a colour-coded weather warning?

• These are issued by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) for explaining the severity of the weather phenomena which has the potential to cause damage, widespread disruption or danger to life.
• These alerts are also issued during floods, depending on the amount of water rising above land/in a river as a result of torrential rainfall. Warnings are updated daily.
• The IMD uses 4 colour codes —
  • • Green (All is well) — No advisory is issued.
    • Yellow (Be Aware) — Yellow indicates severely bad weather spanning several days. It also suggests that the weather could change for the worse, disrupting day-to-day activities.
    • Orange/Amber (Be prepared) — The orange alert is issued as a warning of extremely bad weather with the potential of disruption in commute with road and rail closures, and interruption of power supply.
    • Red (Take Action) — When extremely bad weather conditions are certainly going to disrupt travel and power and have significant risks to life, the red alert is issued.

About the India Meteorological Department –

• It is the main agency responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasting and seismology in India.
• Nodal Ministry — Ministry of Earth Sciences.
• It operates hundreds of observation stations across India and Antarctica.
• Regional offices are in Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Nagpur, Guwahati and New Delhi.
• It is also one of the six Regional Specialised Meteorological Centres of the World Meteorological Organisation.
• It has the responsibility for forecasting, naming and distributing 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.