Improving capabilities: IMD must remain at the forefront of innovation

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 1875. It has evolved over time and is now a symbol of India’s scientific advancement, specialising in predicting short- and long-term weather patterns and giving early warnings for adverse weather events. As India’s weather-tracking department recently turned 150, its importance cannot be overstated. Weather forecasting plays a crucial role in daily operations across various sectors, including agriculture, road and rail transport, flight operations, managing energy output from power plants, and even tourism. For instance, the IMD provides wind speed and direction, global horizontal irradiance forecasts, historical day-wise maximum-minimum temperature for site selection, and designing solar and wind power plants.

 

Accurately predicting rainfall, cyclones, heatwaves, and droughts is critical to better disaster management in a tropical country like India. Forecast accuracy has increased with time, though there is room for improvement. Following the “super-cyclone” in Odisha in 1999, the IMD has constantly ramped up efforts to enhance its predictive power of tropical cyclones. In fact, the accuracy of cyclone forecasts has increased from about 20 per cent in the early 2000s to over 80 per cent by 2020 in terms of landfall point and timing. Similarly, probabilistic forecasts, offering a lead time of four-five days for extreme weather events, have become a lifesaver. These can be attributed to the IMD’s adoption of state-of-the-art technologies like automatic weather stations, automatic rain gauge instrumentation, Doppler radars, and observatories. 

Completing 150 years marks a pivotal moment for the IMD as the country aims to become a weather-ready and climate-smart nation. It is set to assume an even more important role as climate change makes weather forecasting challenging. In this context, the recently released IMD Vision document 2047 would serve as a blueprint in the coming years. As outlined in the document, the IMD needs to work towards mainstreaming weather and climate information and bring loss of life to zero in the case of severe weather events. The IMD’s vision document lays down clearly targeted goals. These include 100 per cent detection of all types of severe weather at village and household level, zero error in forecast up to three days, 90 per cent forecast accuracy up to five days, 80 per cent forecast accuracy up to seven days, and 70 per cent forecast accuracy up to 10 days. 

Further, the recent launch of Mission Mausam is expected to boost the IMD’s capabilities in terms of weather surveillance, modelling, forecasting, and even weather modification. With an outlay of ~2,000 crore over two years, the mission is intended to augment the Doppler weather-radar network across the country to ensure complete radar coverage. Moreover, 15 radiometers and 15 wind profilers are to be installed to observe surface measurements and the upper atmosphere, while cloud chambers are to be set up for weather modification research. Nonetheless, the IMD still grapples with several challenges including deterministic forecasts of long-term monsoon patterns, or extremely heavy-rainfall events and flooding. Climate change is rewriting weather patterns, and urbanisation is creating new vulnerabilities. The IMD must remain at the forefront of innovation to address these complexities.