To help all countries in the tropical region, India has become the first country in the world to create an advanced weather forecasting system called the Bharat Forecast System (BFS). This system can give more accurate and detailed weather predictions, even at the village level. It has improved forecast accuracy by up to 64%.
The BFS was developed in India by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune. On Monday, it was officially handed over to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) by Union Earth Sciences Minister Jitendra Singh. The system had been tested since 2022, and during that time, it helped improve weather predictions for events like monsoons, heavy rainfall, cyclones, and short-term forecasts (called nowcasts, for the next two hours), with accuracy improvements ranging from 30% to 64%.
M. Ravichandran, Secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, explained that a special software code called the TCO code is being used in BFS. This code allows the system to use more data from radars and other sources, which will help make forecasts even better in the future.
Ravichandran, who previously worked at IITM from 1988 to 1997, said that using BFS has improved both the quality of the forecasts and the amount of data collected, thanks to the TCO code.
He added, “Right now, the system gives weather updates for areas that are 12 kilometers wide. Soon, this will improve to 6 kilometers. This means instead of giving one forecast for four villages, we’ll be able to give a separate forecast for each village.”
While other weather organizations around the world are still working towards this level of detail, India is the first to reach the 6-kilometer resolution milestone.
“That’s why I call BFS a globally important but locally useful weather forecasting system,” Ravichandran said. Also Read | IMD, Japan & UNDP have unveiled new project to expedite climate action in India
He also pointed out that tropical areas often face unpredictable and severe weather, so using higher-resolution models is more important here than in other regions.
M. Mohapatra, Director General of IMD, accepted the BFS from IITM and said, “This is a big achievement. India will now be known for reaching 6-kilometer resolution in weather forecasts. This supports the 2019 goal of making weather forecasts available to every household — and making sure they are actually useful.”
Add Comment