Tech and AI in Weather Forecasting Systems Saving Lives: IMD DG

Visakhapatnam: Technology and AI under Mission Mausam have brought improvisations that allow for early and accurate weather forecasts; this reduced human casualties and helped farmers cope with excessive rain or drought.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) Director General (DG) Mrutyunjay Mohapatra plans to strengthen the network of meteorological observation stations and increase IMD’s forecast accuracy by 15 per cent by 2030.

Mohapatra explained that the weather agency has entered into collaborations with various academic and R&D institutes in India and abroad. In the coming days, it will increase its ability to provide precise weather forecasts using both physical and artificial intelligence (AI) models.

Multiple automated meteorological observation networks will be established at district and block levels in the coming years, providing localized data with higher resolution to the Met agency, which will help improve forecast accuracy. The number of Doppler radars will be increased from 40 to 73 by 2025-26 and to 126 by 2026. Real-time data capture will be increased by increasing automatic rain gauges by 1,000 and weather stations by 500.

“IMD’s forecasts have improved between 2019 and 2023. Cyclone tracking accuracy matches or exceeds the US and Japan’s systems,” Mohapatra told this correspondent.

He argued that climate change causes disasters in the world with changing temperatures, irregular rainfall and temperature drops. Calling it the anthosphere (human-altered environment), he pointed out that coal mining, industrialization and automotive affect the climate.

Regarding Andhra Pradesh, Mohapatra announced that the state will soon have three more Doppler Weather Radars which will improvise the weather forecast system. AP already has such radars in Visakhapatnam, Machilipatnam and Sriharikota. The new radars will be installed in Ongole, Amaravati and Kakinada.

Stella S., Director, IMD, Amaravati, said, “The tender for the three new radars in Machilipatnam as well as the non-functional radar has been completed. We have requested the state government to allocate land for the installation of these systems.”

IMD sources said that the current number of automatic weather stations in Andhra Pradesh will be increased from 62 to 80. One will be installed in the ASR region, which records the state’s lowest temperatures.