CHENNAI: Dr Sivananda Damodara Pai has assumed charge as head of the Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC), Chennai, and the RMC South Region. Dr Pai, who joined the Indian Meteorological Service in November 1992, brings over 34 years of experience in research, operational weather and climate services, and academic activities.

He has held key positions such as Additional Director General of Meteorology (2018–2022), Climate Research and Services, Pune; Director, Institute of Climate Change Studies, Kerala (2022–2023); and Programme Director, Ministry of Earth Sciences, leading the Agromet Advisory Division, IMD, New Delhi.

A distinguished scientist, Dr Pai’s contributions include operational models for seasonal forecasting, improved monsoon onset prediction for Kerala, computation of updated monsoon onset and withdrawal dates, and high-resolution gridded datasets for India. His research focuses on climate variability, climate change, and prediction.