IMD Upgrades Weather Forecasts Down to the Village Level

The government on Monday unveiled a new system which will facilitate more localized — even village level — forecasting of weather patterns, especially extreme rainfall, cyclones etc.

- SANDIP DAS

The Bharat Forecasting System (BFS) is claimed to be the world's highest-resolution weather model, operating on a six-kilometer (km) grid as against 12 km at present, according to officials.

The system developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, would be operational from the current monsoon season, M Ravichandran, secretary, ministry of earth sciences, said.

"Given chaotic weather events, we need to develop a higher resolution system.

"We used to give four villages in the 12 km areas one forecast, now we can give each village a separate forecast," he said.