New Delhi, Aug 28 (IANS): The Indian Navy was on Wednesday handed over a building in the Kochi naval base by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Wednesday for the purpose of weather forecasting and meteorology.

The building, belonging to the IMD, is located within the premises of naval air station INS Garuda in Kochi.

An MoU was signed in Kochi between top officials of IMD and the Navy for the hand over of the building. The building constructed in the mid-1980s was earlier being used by the IMD as a cyclone detection radar center.

Officials of the Indian Navy said the building will be used for providing daily meteorological information and forecasts to ships and naval establishments. The Indian Naval Meteorological Analysis Centre, a unit set up by in 2013 to relay meteorological data to its various units and establishments, will begin operations from the building.

The IMD had stopped using the building in 2017 after it abandoned the S-band radar technology for cyclone detection, which had become obsolete. The same year, the IMD had begun operating a new Doppler Weather Radar at Mundamveli in Kochi.