SkyCast System:
India inaugurated its first SkyCast System at Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI), New Delhi, with the next facility planned at Jewar Airport and further expansion across other airports in the country.This makes India the 19th country to deploy this integrated atmospheric remote sensing system, joining the 18 existing facilities worldwide.SkyCast provides real-time atmospheric intelligence to pilots and air traffic operators, reducing delays, diversions, and cancellations due to fog, turbulence, and other adverse weather. SkyCast combines multiple atmospheric monitoring instruments, including Radar Wind Profiler, SODAR, Microwave Radiometer, Ground-based Fog Aerosol Spectrometer (GFAS), and CL61 Lidar Ceilometer to monitor atmospheric parameters up to 3 km altitude. The system builds on the Winter Fog Experiment (WiFEX) initiated by IITM (Indian Institute of Technology, Madras) and IMD at IGI Airport in 2015, which studied fog formation, aerosol-cloud interactions, visibility reduction, and urban boundary-layer processes, enabling the development of this operational system.
