Govt unveils advanced models to help predict severe weather

NEW DELHI: With the unveiling of two state-of-the-art weather prediction models on Friday, the earth sciences ministry is aiming to generate more accurate block level forecasts five to seven days in advance.

“These two products will serve the country in terms of severe weather, rainfall and other hazards that impact different parts of the country, with higher degree of accuracy,” said KJ Ramesh, director general of India Meteorological Department (IMD).

Though the IMD already issues agro-met forecasts at district levels, farmers have been demanding localised information. “We are providing lead time to people to respond,” said M Rajeevan, secretary, ministry of earth sciences.”

The two ensemble forecasting systems will be operated by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, Noida. The commissioning of the Mihir and Pratyush supercomputers at a cost of ₹450 crore earlier this year has allowed scientists to run models more times in order to generate more accurate forecasts. These numerical models are fed data about initial conditions allowing them to spit out predictions about future weather parameters like temperatures, rainfall and humidity. However, given the uncertainty about initial conditions, the models are run with slightly differing values for initial conditions, so that a range of forecasts or an ensemble forecast is produced. This allows forecasters to say what event will happen with what probability.