new delhi you may be getting to know when to expect inclement weather but you may not know how it will impact your lives in order to bridge this critical information gap the india meteorological department imd will this year start impactbased forecast for severe weather events in the same way it does for cyclonesunder impactbased forecast the countrys national weather agency will not only tell you about severity of rainfall or heatcold wave but also inform you about its impact itll help you and local authorities to take better contingency measuresimpact of heavy rainfall could be different for different cities or regions depending on location season and ground condition therefore it is important to come out with an impactbased forecast in case of heavy rainfalls or any other weather events and tell authorities or general public about impact of such events in particular city state or region said madhavan rajeevan secretary ministry of earth sciences moesso everywhere people now not only talk about what would be the weather tomorrow but what the weather will do impact said rajeevan on sidelines of the imds 145th foundation day function here on wednesdayciting example of uttarakhand floods of 2013 he said the imd had predicted heavy rainfall in the region and it got satisfaction from accuracy of its prediction but we could see that such prediction did not end up in real action said rajeevan noting the concerns of the state government which flagged that it was getting such prediction of heavy rains every day but how could such forecasts be interpretedeven imd did not anticipate what had actually happened there due to extreme heavy rainfall in fact impact of extreme weather events vary from place to place and season to season we are therefore now trying to implement the impactbased forecast system said the moes secretaryindia is currently working with the united kingdom meteorological office to implement such systems in the country at present the imd does such predictions only in case of cyclones where it tells authorities what would actually happen to houses trees electric or communication lines etc during landfall or during pre or postlandfall periodthe impactbased forecast for all extreme weather events will improve planning for different scenarios based on different thresholds it will help disaster management authorities to quickly take measures to minimise damageconsidering its importance the world meteorological organisation wmo had in 2015 released comprehensive guidelines on impactbased forecast and warning services it noted how extreme weather events around the globe give rise to multiple casualties and significant damage to property and infrastructure in spite of the fact that many of these severe events have been well forecast with accurate warning information disseminated in a timely fashion