New Delhi: With the minimum temperature falling to 10.7 degrees Celsius for the second time this week, the lowest in the season, Delhiites have formally declared winter. The maximum fell to 24.2 degrees Celsius, four degrees below normal. The Met department said this was due to snowfall in Himachal and Kashmir. Delhi

The IMD overlooked and ignored data on Cyclone Phyan, leading to the loss of almost a hundred lives, says SUJAY GUPTA

Worried about driving blind on a foggy winter morning? Help will soon be an SMS away.

The weatherman has decided to start a service providing point to point information about fog and visibility through cellphone messages. The project will begin in Delhi and then be replicated in other parts of the country.

The Indian Meteorological Department has sounded a cyclone alert for Gujarat and Maharashtra. A depression over the Arabian Sea is likely to intensify in the coming days and move towards the north and northeast.

WINDS AT 75 KMPH PREDICTED A depression over the Arabian sea is likely to intensify in the coming days and move towards the north and northeast

Call to deploy high resolution global, regional climate models.

Focus areas

The session also felt the need for improving the accuracy of weather forecasting and short-term climate prediction for high impact weather events.

Another area that needed focus was the development and implementation of early warning systems for all hydro-meteorological disasters.

Vinson Kurian