Centre unveils Bharat Forecast System with improved 6 km-grid accuracy

The new model offers 64 per cent better prediction accuracy and sharper 6 km-grid resolution, aiding village-level forecasts and faster extreme weather tracking

The Ministry of Earth Sciences on Monday launched the world’s most precise indigenously-developed weather forecasting model that can accurately predict climatic conditions in a 6-kilometre grid, a marked improvement from the existing systems that forecast weather patterns over a 12-kilometre grid.

 

The current model called the ‘Bharat Forecast System’ can predict weather systems right up to the village and panchayat level, with almost 64 per cent improvement in prediction skills.

 

For extreme rainfall events, which are a common occurrence during monsoon months, the Bharat Forecast System has shown a 30 per cent improvement in accuracy as compared to the existing models. It has also shown marked improvement in prediction of cyclone paths.

 

The model that has been developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune will now be used for making both short-range and long-range forecasts by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) over a smaller area as compared to the present systems.

 

Earlier, IMD used models that predicted weather systems and changes accurately over a 23-kilometre grid, which was brought down to 12 kilometres few years back and has now been further narrowed down to 6 kilometres using high-end computer systems and satellite imagery. 

 

The new system was handed over to IMD by Minister for Science and Technology, Jitendra Singh.

 

Dr Suryachandra Rao, director, IITM-Pune, in his address said that the earlier weather forecasting models used to take around 12-14 hours to make accurate weather predictions over a particular area, but with the advancement in high performance computing systems as part of the central government’s ‘Mission Mausam’, we have now capabilities to predict weather accurately in 4-6 hours.

 

Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general, IMD, which will use the indigenously- developed model to make its operational weather forecast, said that launch is part of the Centre’s efforts to make weather predictions accessible and useful for all.

 

With the successful integration of the new system into the IMD, India has now become the only country operating a global forecast system at such a high resolution for real time.

 

The Bharat Forecast model was implemented in 2022 and after testing it for the last 3 years, it has now become ready for operational forecast.