Thane still ‘haunts’ retiring Ramanan

People have much affection to Dr Ramanan that they would even call him over phone before fixing date of their son/ daughter’s wedding to know whether it would rain heavily during that period. In a freewheeling chat with DTNext on Monday, Ramanan said that he received several such calls daily during his service.

Born in Pudukottai in 1956, he did his schooling in P.S. High School (North) in Mylapore, pre-university college in Guru Nanak College, BSc (Physics) at Vivekananda college, Chennai, and MSc (Physics) at Annamalai University, Chidambaram. He received PhD from Madras University for his research on climatology of rainfed crops.

Having joined the Indian Meteorological Department in1980 at Kurnool (AP) as senior observer, he rose to the level of Director of ACWC in 2002 and retires from the post. 

About his experiences with forecasting cyclones during his tenure as ACWC director, Ramanan said that he had forecast a few major cyclones which made landfall in Tamil Nadu, including Nisha, Thane and Nilam, besides lot of trough of low pressures. 

“I cannot forget Thane cyclone in 2011. When it made a landfall, All India Radio (AIR) called me and I gave an interview about the cyclone which was aired the whole day. As people can tune into their battery powered radios, we were able to avoid substantial number of deaths because of the cyclone,” he said.

Terming his meeting with the then Chief Minister of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh Chandrababu Naidu as another memorable moment, Ramanan said that he met the CM at Hyderabad to brief him about Hudhud cyclone, which made landfall at Vizag.  

He pointed out that with the support from his family he was able to work round the clock to forecast weather and serve public. “My office friends too have helped me a lot by providing any data that I ask,” he added.

Ramanan says that he had been visiting educational institutions to create awareness among youth in schools and colleges about weather, which he wants to continue post-retirement.