JUST SPAMMING | Forecasts More Menacing Than The Weather

It was the weather, an inclement one at that, which took centre stage last week in capturing the imagination of people and also prevented the State from coming out of the holiday mood to resume normal activities after the long Deepavali weekend. Rains wreaking havoc during the Deepavali season has happened in the past too. But last week the rains assumed a menacing aura with some sections of the media frightening the people by reporting on the issuance of red alerts or orange alerts in some districts and stopped many families that had gone home for the festival from taking the trip back to their workplaces.

Unlike the past when all the people depended on the Indian Meteorological Department - a good old organization formed in 1875 by the British East India Company that wanted to know in advance the vagaries of nature in an alien country - for their information on the weather, the modern generation has its own iconic weather forecasters. Some of them have even turned celebrities with an avid fan following as the popular perception is that the government department cannot forecast the weather properly. So the new age weather experts started telling the people about the rains that would lash them or just give the skip leaving them high and dry.

The new trend of knowing the weather from the self-styled amateurs in fact may feel that they had made redundant the sick, old joke of All India Radio announcing heavy rains for the city even as the listener looks out of the window to see the blazing sun scorching the yard. Though the weather forecast cannot be expected to be on the mark always, how much error could be tolerated in these times of advanced technology is the question now. Many claim that the voluntary weather forecasters were closer to the mark than the IMD people.

But then, Chennai had one career meteorologist from the IMD who had become a household name during his tenure. After he retired from service in 2016, many television viewers missed him terribly. More than his predictions – it was never in his hands since rains disrupted even his daughter’s wedding in Chennai, though he was not on duty that day – he was known for his media savvy presentation that impelled people to watch the news on weather. But when the amateur forecasters came into the scene, people went gaga over them because they were believed to be more accurate.

More than the error in forecast, what is presently causing real concern is the way weather reports were dealt with in the media and the social media. Some YouTube channels and also mainstream media often cause panic by highlighting ‘red alerts’ and ‘orange alerts’ issued to districts. As it happened last week, the panic level was so high that Chennai roads were empty with many people who had gone out of town not returning home and those at home preferring to stay indoors out of fear. In fact, in Chennai, the fear of rains touched a nadir after 2015.

That was the year that saw an unprecedented catastrophe brought about by the rains to Chennai. The Union Government’s National Institute of Disaster Management even brought out a book – Chennai Floods 2015 - subsequent to the event and classified the floods caused by the North East monsoon as ‘one of the deadliest’ in the country. While it spoke widely about rapid urbanization, unregulated and erroneous development, pointing the fingers at various natural and human factors, the point is that nobody foresaw the floods sweeping through human habitations. Now the authorities, city planners and those involved in disaster management seem to have taken note of it and are charting out mitigation and management strategies.

But the hangover of the catastrophe still lingers and people panic at the first drop of drizzle during the North East Monsoon season. It is due to this collective fear that the weather reports predicting heavy rains and speaking about red alerts that force people to fear for the worst. Though the IMD warns the public about impending showers, which is its duty and responsibility, the news outlets accentuate the public fear by not interpreting the basic information. Since most meteorological predictions are common for a wide swathe of land and the weather itself has a tendency to change, raising an alarm boomerangs at those issuing the warnings, at times.

People who take a media report seriously and take precautions by skipping some important work based on it lose faith in such warnings when the anticipated rain or storm or thunderstorm or whatever does not happen. So the next time when a warning is issued they tend to ignore it and put themselves and their loved ones in danger. If the IMD issues a red alert to Chennai for the next day, which actually dawns with the sun shining brightly in the city, people only mock the forecast. So the onus of inculcating faith among the common people on such weather forecasts lies with the media, both social and mainstream. The way such warnings are presented in the media is also important.

Media channels caution people using age-old formats, going for ‘do’s and don’ts’ that are ambiguous. Since there has been no attempt to make people understand the real situation and take weather reports, particularly warnings, in the right perspective, only confusion prevails during the rains.