Chennai Port Trust Centenary Building is a 12-storied building in

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, India, serving as the chief administrative building of the Chennai Port Trust. The Port Met Office of the Regional Meteorological Centre also functions from this building and the cyclone detection

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...

is situated atop the building contained in a giant football-like mascot structure, which serves as a prominent landmark in the harbour area.

Location

The Centenary Building is located opposite to the

Reserve Bank of India The Reserve Bank of India, chiefly known as RBI, is India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. It is under the ownership of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It is responsible f ...

Building at Fort Glacis near Fort St. George. The nearest railway stations are the Chennai Beach and Chennai Fort, both located within a distance of half a kilometre.

Cyclone detection radar

The "radome" or the radar's dome is located atop the building at nearly 53 m above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

. Weighing 18 tonnes, the radar continuously scans the atmosphere within the radius of nearly 500 km and provides an overview of active weather systems. The office of the

Doppler Weather Radar Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail etc.). Modern weather radars are mostly pulse- ...

Station is situated on the 10th floor of the building. The radar was installed on 21 February 2002. The radar was developed by

Bharat Electronics Limited Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) is an Indian Government-owned aerospace and defence electronics company. It primarily manufactures advanced electronic products for ground and aerospace applications. BEL is one of nine PSUs under the Ministry ...

and is used by Indian Air Force and

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

. This is the first radar to have been installed in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

facing the sea on one side and the land on the other. The data captured by the radar have been used to warn the region of the cyclonic storms forming in the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line betwee ...

and the

thunderstorms A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are somet ...

on the surface. Data from the Doppler radar are currently being used by the

Chennai airport Chennai International Airport is an international airport serving the city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu and its metropolitan area. It is located in Tirusulam, southwest of the city centre. Chennai International Airport is the sixth busiest airpo ...

. The data on

wind speed In meteorology, wind speed, or wind flow speed, is a fundamental atmospheric quantity caused by air moving from high to low pressure, usually due to changes in temperature. Wind speed is now commonly measured with an anemometer. Wind speed ...

and

wind direction Wind direction is generally reported by the direction from which it originates. For example, a ''north'' or ''northerly'' wind blows from the north to the south. The exceptions are onshore winds (blowing onto the shore from the water) and offsho ...

are transmitted almost every 10 min, providing information necessary for landing and takeoff of aircraft. Till 2011, the radar had tracked seven cyclones and three depressions formed over the Bay of Bengal, including Nisha (November 2008), Laila (May 2010), Jal (November 2010) and

Thane Thane (; also known as Thana, the official name until 1996) is a metropolitan city in Maharashtra, India. It is situated in the north-eastern portion of the Salsette Island. Thane city is entirely within Thane taluka, one of the seven taluk ...

(December 2011). The radar converts nearly 750 kilowatt power into electromagnetic radiation for tracking weather systems. The radar is capable of detecting the spatial variability and rainfall intensity across Chennai and neighbouring districts and can also track the movement of clouds and predict rainfall in another area. The Department of Meteorology is planning for "nowcasting," a short-term forecasting where weather is predicted for the next one to three hours, using the potential of the radar to track rainfall in various parts of the region.

References

{{Chennai Topics Government buildings in Tamil Nadu Office highrises in Chennai Weather radars

Location

Cyclone detection radar

See also

References