Aimed at benefiting all countries in the tropical region, India has become the first country globally to develop a forecasting system — named the Bharat Forecast System (BFS) — that can predict weather with greater accuracy and detail, down to the village level in common parlance. The system has improved prediction skill by up to 64 per cent.
Indigenously developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, the BFS was handed over to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Monday by Union Earth Sciences Minister Jitendra Singh for operational use. The system had been under experimental testing since 2022, and the data generated from it helped improve the accuracy of weather forecasts by 30–64 per cent, depending on the event—such as monsoon, nowcast (forecasts for the next two hours), extreme rainfall events, or cyclones.
“By implementing this particular TCO code, we are going to improve the forecast. We will now assimilate more and more data from radar and other systems, which will help us improve further in the coming years,” said M. Ravichandran, Secretary in the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
Ravichandran, who also worked at IITM from 1988 to 1997, said that by implementing the BFS, both the spatial pattern of forecasts and the volume of observations have improved due to the TCO code framework.
“Currently, we have a resolution of 12 kilometres, and we will soon have a higher resolution of 6 kilometres. This means that earlier, one forecast would cover an area comprising about four villages within a 12-kilometre radius. Now, we will be able to provide a separate forecast for each village,” Ravichandran said.
He added that while many meteorological organisations around the world are working towards achieving this level of precision, India has become the first to reach the 6-kilometre resolution milestone.
He said, “This is why I call BFS a globally important but locally relevant forecasting system.”
Pointing out that the tropical region experiences many chaotic weather events, he stressed the need to develop much higher resolution models than those used in other parts of the world.
Accepting the BFS from IITM, M Mohapatra, Director General of IMD, said: “This is a milestone, as India will be recognised for achieving a 6-kilometre resolution. This will help in fulfilling the 2019 vision of making weather forecasts accessible to every household and ensuring that they are actionable.”
Published on May 26, 2025
Aimed at benefiting all countries in the tropical region, India has become the first country globally to develop a forecasting system — named the Bharat Forecast System (BFS) — that can predict weather with greater accuracy and detail, down to the village level in common parlance. The system has improved prediction skill by up to 64 per cent.
Indigenously developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, the BFS was handed over to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Monday by Union Earth Sciences Minister Jitendra Singh for operational use. The system had been under experimental testing since 2022, and the data generated from it helped improve the accuracy of weather forecasts by 30–64 per cent, depending on the event—such as monsoon, nowcast (forecasts for the next two hours), extreme rainfall events, or cyclones.
“By implementing this particular TCO code, we are going to improve the forecast. We will now assimilate more and more data from radar and other systems, which will help us improve further in the coming years,” said M. Ravichandran, Secretary in the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
Ravichandran, who also worked at IITM from 1988 to 1997, said that by implementing the BFS, both the spatial pattern of forecasts and the volume of observations have improved due to the TCO code framework.
“Currently, we have a resolution of 12 kilometres, and we will soon have a higher resolution of 6 kilometres. This means that earlier, one forecast would cover an area comprising about four villages within a 12-kilometre radius. Now, we will be able to provide a separate forecast for each village,” Ravichandran said.
He added that while many meteorological organisations around the world are working towards achieving this level of precision, India has become the first to reach the 6-kilometre resolution milestone.
He said, “This is why I call BFS a globally important but locally relevant forecasting system.”
Pointing out that the tropical region experiences many chaotic weather events, he stressed the need to develop much higher resolution models than those used in other parts of the world.
Accepting the BFS from IITM, M Mohapatra, Director General of IMD, said: “This is a milestone, as India will be recognised for achieving a 6-kilometre resolution. This will help in fulfilling the 2019 vision of making weather forecasts accessible to every household and ensuring that they are actionable.”
Published on May 26, 2025
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It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution
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