Chennai: While the tornado spotted by Uthandi-resident Robert Gagarin on East Coast Road in September this year made many heads turn in Chennai, several amateur weathermen have taken to weather tracking in a big way in the city. DC caught up with a weather blogger, Ham radio operator, astro-meteorologist and an angler interested in tracking the weather.
Architect S. Ramachandran is a self-confessed astro-meteorologist. The 58-year-old got enticed by astrology as a student and he found a lot of scientific interpretations in astrology, claimed to be useful in predicting weather. According to him, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has weather data for only the last 100 years, while the monsoon has behaved differently in the past 1.5 lakh years.
“With the help of planetary positions and its behaviour, we can find the weather patterns,” said Ramachandran, who added that he had used astrology to verify the weather models that occurred in the last 100 years. While Ramachandran’s predictions have a success rate of about 70 per cent, he is continuing in his pursuit to get more data to forecast precisely.
Ham radio is IT professional K. Rajesh’s first love. The 44-year-old has specialised in transcending borders using minimum equipment. The amateur radio operators are very useful, especially during distress times. “In course of our Ham operations, we learnt to track satellites and it helps predict and track weather,” he explained.
Rajesh, who uses the call sign VU3RGK as a Ham radio operator, believes in using non-conventional wisdom like astrology, animal behaviour, even smell of air and historical proverbs and songs that have been passed down the generations, along with usual patterns, to predict weather.
R. Pradeep John, who works at the Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure Financial Services Limited, follows weather as a passion. “Initially, I used to study sea level pressure and wind speed to track cyclones. Now, with the advent of Internet and computer models, I am able to even post cyclone track before it actually occurs,” he said.
Pradeep John (31) is a senior member of Keaweather blogging community. Robert Gagarin (58), who runs a food processing business, never fails to take a picture of the evening sky. “I am an angler (sports fishing) and I follow the clouds before going for fishing every evening,” he said.
