IITH develops facility for accurate rainfall prediction

HYDERABAD: The Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH) said it had established a world-class Raindrop Research Facility (RRF) for simulating atmospheric conditions from the clouds to the ground in order to better predict rainfall.

Niti Aayog member Dr V.K. Saraswat inaugurated the facility in the presence of Prof. B.S. Murty, Director, IITH, and Prof. Vidyasagar, distinguished professor, IITH.

Prof. Murty said, “After a lot of research, Prof. Kirti Sahu, a faculty in the chemical engineering dpartment at IITH, and his team were able to set up the facility which can predict raindrop dynamics at various altitudes. It is not only going to be useful for our country but also to the whole world in predicting rainfall with much better precision.”

Explaining the uniqueness of the facility, Prof. Sahu, lead researcher of RRF, said, “One of the key limitations in rainfall modelling is the lack of fundamental knowledge of the microphysical processes like coalescence, break-up and phase change in the actual atmospheric conditions. Using the novel experimental facility developed at IITH, the temperature can be varied from -10oC to 40oC and relative humidity can be maintained from zero to saturation level.

“Thus, we can mimic the dynamic atmospheric conditions from cloud to ground and estimate the shape and size distributions of raindrops at various altitudes. This information will be used to improve rainfall prediction. This methodology is a far better choice than the other measurement methods now in use.”