China's first mobile Doppler meteorological radar system has been put into operation at a Yangtze River section in central China's Hubei Province.

The system, jointly financed by the China Meteorological Administration and the government of Jingzhou City in Hubei, is the key equipment of a large state meteorological research program titled "Outdoor experiment on intermittent drizzle front and strong rainstorms in the Yangtze River Valley".

With the application of a number of advanced technologies, the meteorological radar system only takes a few minutes to assemble and dismantle, and only needs three trucks to transport it, said Gao Zhonghui, the engineer responsible for the development of the system at the Hefei-based Anhui Sichuang Electronics Co.

Helped by the radar, meteorological workers will not only be able to survey weather features, but also to gauge the distribution of air currents based on the principle of the Doppler effect, and thereby make timely and accurate forecasts about common natural disasters in the basin of the Yangtze River in Hubei.

This section of the Yangtze, also called the Jingjiang River, traverses complicated landforms, making it difficult to monitor and forecast natural disasters, especially floods. Thus Jingjiang is the most dangerous section of the Yangtze River.

Experts believe that the operation of the Doppler radar will help improve China's capability to forecast and monitor intermittent drizzle fronts and heavy rainstorms in the summer in the area south of the Yangtze River, and facilitate anti-flood efforts.

China started using Doppler weather radar in the late 1980s. The country has decided to upgrade its radar network with about 100 sets of new-generation Doppler weather radar systems.

(People’s Daily 09/02/2001)