India launches most precise weather model

New Delhi: In a major boost to India's weather prediction capabilities, the government on Monday unveiled the Bharat Forecasting System (B Bharat Forecast System was made possible through the installation of Arka, a new supercomputer at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology campus last year. Arka boasts a computational capacity of 11.77 petaflops and a storage capacity of 33 petabytes FS) — the world’s highest-resolution weather model, operating on a 6-kilometre grid.

Developed by researchers, including Parthasarathy Mukhopadhyay, the model aims to deliver more granular and accurate forecasts, especially for small-scale weather patterns. "This significant milestone represents a major leap in India's self-reliance in meteorological sciences, enabling more accurate and granular weather forecasts up to panchayat level for disaster risk reduction, agriculture, water resource management and public safety," a senior official from the Earth Sciences Ministry said.

The BFS was made possible through the installation of Arka, a new supercomputer at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) campus last year. Arka boasts a computational capacity of 11.77 petaflops and a storage capacity of 33 petabytes.

“The previous supercomputer ‘Pratyush’ used to take up to 10 hours to run the forecasting model. Arka performs the same data-crunching within four hours,” Mukhopadhyay said. Union Earth Sciences Minister Jitendra Singh dedicated the Bharat Forecasting System (BFS) to the nation at a function in New Delhi. The BFS will leverage a network of 40 Doppler Weather Radars from across India to generate highly localised forecasts. It provides insight into weather events likely to take place in a grid of 6 km by 6 km against the earlier models that gave predictions for a 12 km grid. The number of Doppler radars is expected to rise to 100, which would allow the weather office to issue nowcasts — short-term forecasts for the next two hours — for the entire country.

The system offers high-resolution forecasts for the tropical region between 30 degrees South and 30 degrees North latitudes, which includes the Indian mainland spanning from 8.4 degrees to 37.6 degrees North. In comparison, the global forecast models run by the European, British, and US weather offices operate at resolutions ranging from 9 km to 14 km.