Centre has launched two advanced weather forecast products developed under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), aimed at delivering hyper-local, impact-based and AI-driven weather services across the country.
The two products, launched by the Union Minister Jitendra Singh, include the first ever AI-driven system by the Indian Metrological Department (IMD) in the form of AI-enabled “forecast of monsoon advance over different parts of the country” and a “high spatial resolution rainfall forecast for Uttar Pradesh” as a pilot service.
The systems have been developed jointly by the IMD, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, and National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF)
Singh said the AI-enabled monsoon advance forecasting system will provide probabilistic forecasts of monsoon progression every Wednesday up to four weeks in advance. “The product has been designed to support farmers across 16 States and more than 3,000 sub-districts through the dissemination framework of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare,” he said.
The Minister said the second product, ‘high spatial resolution rainfall forecast for Uttar Pradesh’, has been developed as a pilot service to generate rainfall forecasts at 1-km spatial resolution up to 10 days in advance. The system uses advanced AI-driven downscaling techniques and integrates data from Automatic Rain Gauges (ARGs), Automatic Weather Stations (AWSs), Doppler Weather Radars and satellite-based rainfall datasets.
Singh said the initiative would be particularly useful for agriculture, water resources, renewable energy, urban planning, disaster management and infrastructure sectors. He said farmers would now be able to make more informed decisions relating to sowing, irrigation, crop protection and harvest planning with far greater local precision.
Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Dr. M. Ravichandran said the monsoon advance forecasting system would now provide granular forecasts on monsoon progression at district-level scales, while the Uttar Pradesh pilot project demonstrates the capability of generating operational rainfall forecasts at 1-km resolution using dense observational networks and AI techniques. He added that similar services would gradually be expanded to other parts of the country as observational infrastructure continues to grow.
