Andhra Pradesh: IMD yet to get land at Lambasingi for weather station

IMD has written to the AP government in 2022 seeking land to start its AWS at the hill station. The government did sanction land, which the IMD could not utilise as it became part of a national highway widening project. The state government then offered land behind the public health centre. But that too went away in the expansion of the health centre.

“We have one again written to the ASR district collector for allotment of land for our automatic weather station,” IMD AP’s director Stella S. pointed out. She disclosed that a piece of land in the APTDC tourism project compound is being contemplated for the AWS.

Presently, weather readings in the area are being recorded at an AWS located at the Regional Agriculture Research Station in Chintapalli, about 10 km from Lambasingi, a tiny tribal hamlet that is famous as Andhra's Kashmir.

Tourists swarm the hill to feel the freezing temperatures in December and January. The temperature in Lambasingi sometimes goes down to 1 degree Celsius. About 2,000–3,000 visitors arrive at the small hill station for weekends during winters.

Stella said the India Meteorological Department has 13 automatic weather stations in various parts of the state. Ten of them are continuing to provide weather parameters like temperature, wind, rainfall and atmospheric pressure every 15 minutes.

“There is a need to set up an AWS in ASR district to keep the weather in the entire tribal district under surveillance,” the IMD state director underlined.