Latest news with #M.Ravichandran
Mint
28-05-2025
- Climate
- Mint
Farmers to get weather updates on feature phones with IMD's upcoming AI service: Earth Sciences Secretary M. Ravichandra
New Delhi: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is set to launch an AI-powered app called Mausam GPT that will to provide accurate local weather information in regional languages through both text and audio within six months. A key focus of this initiative is to make the system accessible on both smartphones and basic feature phones, enabling even small farmers to get timely weather forecasts at the press of just two or three buttons, earth sciences secretary M. Ravichandran told Mint. The initiative aims to benefit farmers by offering localized weather forecasts to help them decide the best time to sow crops. Travellers can also get advisories, improving planning and safety. India has around 145 million farmers in total. The number of title holders or land-owning farmers is around 86 million, according to recent agricultural census data. Ravichandran also revealed that the IMD plans to acquire two multidisciplinary oceanographic research vessels at a cost of ₹ 1,000 crore each. Additionally, a new Antarctic research station, 'Maitri-2,' will be built near the existing Maitri base, with a total project cost of ₹ 2,000 crore, including a ship with icebreaker by 2029. Ravichandran emphasized that the goal is to deliver weather information that truly benefits people, especially in rural areas. 'Simply saying it may rain or may not rain, like in the city, is of little use,' he said. He explained an early version called 'Monsoon GPT' has already been developed but needs enhancement to work on feature phones as well as smartphones. 'For example, a small farmer should be able to get weather forecasts by pressing just two or three buttons, even on a basic phone." The system will use telecom towers to determine the caller's exact location. It will then provide a simple forecast in local language, both in text and voice. For instance, the message could say: 'Day 1 – no rain, Day 2 – no rain, Day 3 – light rain.' Voice messages will aid those who cannot read. In 2024, the rural tele-density in India, which measures the number of telephone subscribers per 100 people, was 58.29%. Travelers with smartphones can simply enter the date and city to receive weather predictions and advice on suitable clothing, Ravichandran added. The first version of Mausam GPT will support five languages with plans to expand to 10 and, eventually, 25 languages. On the ocean economy front, IMD is aiming to increase its contribution to India's national economy from 4% to 8%. This will involve expanded activities in fisheries, marine tourism, and resource extraction. The ministry of earth sciences is collaborating with other departments to realize this vision. Regarding the new research vessels, Ravichandran said, 'Each vessel will be capable of carrying researchers up to six kilometres deep into the ocean to explore both living and non-living resources. Currently, we know only about 1% of the deep ocean floor.' The vessels will support deep-sea scientific surveys and sampling as part of the ministry's deep ocean mission. Equipped with advanced laboratories and scientific equipment, these vessels will be truly multidisciplinary.
Mint
27-05-2025
- Climate
- Mint
Weather Update: IMD issues yellow alert for Mumbai, orange for Tamil Nadu — check forecast for Delhi and other cities
Weather update: After being pummelled by heavy downpours at the start of the week, Mumbai saw a brief respite on Tuesday morning. However, this break may be short-lived, as the IMD has issued a yellow alert for areas across Maharashtra, with forecasts of heavy to very heavy rainfall along the west coast—including Kerala, Karnataka, and Goa—continuing through June 1. Meanwhile, in Tamil Nadu, flash floods hit Tirunelveli's Manimuthar Dam waterfalls, prompting the weather observatory to issue an orange alert for the state. Tourist's entry to the spot have also been restricted. Here's a look at the weather forecast for Mumbai, Delhi, other areas. The IMD has issued a yellow alert for Maharashtra, with Mumbai likely to witness heavy rainfall at isolated places on May 28, Wednesday. Light to moderate rains is likely for May 29-31, states IMD's latest release. Mumbai, India - May 27, 2025: A bazz from the Bandra-Worli Sea Link has washed ashore at Chowpatty near Hinduja hospital come yesterday in Mumbai, India, on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Photo by Satish Bate/ Hindustan Times) Meanwhile, other areas of the coastal state, including Thane, Palghar, Raigad are also likely to witness heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places. In Delhi, the weather is likely to remain partly cloudy, with the possibility of thundery development. The IMD has predicted light rains along with thunderstorms, lightning has been predicted for May 29-May 30. Date IMD forecast May 28 Partly cloudy sky; thundery development possible May 29 Partly cloudy sky; thunderstorm with gusty winds (speeds reaching up to 30-40kmph) May 30 Partly cloudy sky; thunderstorms with gusty winds With conditions now more favourable for the advancement of Southwest monsoon, the IMD has now forecast scattered to fairly widespread rainfall across Telangana, coastal Andhra Pradesh for the next five days. From May 27 to June 2, Kerala, Mahe, and Coastal Karnataka are expected to be lashed by fairly widespread to widespread light to moderate rain, with occasional bouts of thunder, lightning, and gusty winds reaching speeds of 40-50 kmph, stated the weather observatory. At a press conference, M. Ravichandran, Secretary at the Ministry of Earth Sciences, announced that India is likely to receive over 108% of the long-period average rainfall of 166.9 mm in June. 'Most regions across the country are expected to witness normal to above-normal rainfall this month,' he said. 'However, parts of southern peninsular India, as well as some areas in the northwest and northeast, may see below-normal precipitation.' IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra added that this anticipated rainfall could bring normal to below-normal maximum temperatures for much of India, with the exception of several pockets in the northwest and northeast, which may continue to see higher temperatures.
Al Etihad
27-05-2025
- Business
- Al Etihad
India forecasts above average rains in boost to economy
27 May 2025 17:39 NEW DELHI (REUTERS)India is likely to see above average monsoon rains for the second straight year in 2025, the government said on Tuesday, maintaining its forecast from April and keeping alive the possibility of higher farm output and economic rains will help bring down food prices, keep inflation within the central bank's comfort band, and allow the world's biggest rice exporter to ship more of the monsoon is expected to total 106% of the long-term average this year, said M. Ravichandran, secretary in the Ministry of Earth India Meteorological Department defines average or normal rainfall as ranging between 96% and 104% of a 50-year average of 87 cm (35 inches) for the four-month season from June to monsoon delivers nearly 70% of the rain needed to water crops and replenish reservoirs and aquifers in India. With nearly half of the country's farmland not having any irrigation, it depends on the June-September rains to grow a number of rainfall is most likely over the central and southern India, while southwestern parts of the country could receive average rainfall, Ravichandran states are likely to receive below average rainfall, he country is likely to receive 108% rainfall of the long-term average in June, Ravichandran monsoon, which usually arrives over the southern tip of Kerala state around June 1, hit the coast of Kerala on Saturday, eight days earlier than usual, marking its earliest arrival in 16 covering Kerala, it quickly moved to most parts of the west coast, including the financial capital Mumbai, nearly two weeks earlier than forecast of above-average rainfall will lead to higher planting of water-intensive crops such as rice and sugarcane, a New Delhi-based dealer with a global trade house said. India is the world's biggest exporter of rice and onions, and the second-biggest producer of sugar. Following surplus rainfall in 2024, India lifted curbs on rice and onion exports but allowed limited sugar exports of 1 million tons.
The Hindu
26-05-2025
- Climate
- The Hindu
IMD adopts Bharat Forecast System model for panchayat-level rain forecast
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Monday (May 26, 2025) adopted the Bharat Forecast System (BFS), which promises more fine-tuned and accurate rain forecasts down to the panchayat level. The improvements will largely be visible in the 'short- and medium-term' forecasts (three- and seven-day lead times) issued by the IMD but not in the long-range forecasts, usually given a month in advance. Also read: Rain updates on May 26, 2025 The BFS has been tested since 2002 and has shown 'notable improvements' in giving advance warning of heavy rainfall events, M. Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) said. The BFS was developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), part of the MoES. IMD is also an MoES organisation. The improvement in the forecasts is due to the IITM significantly improving the existing weather forecast models as well as harnessing more powerful computing capabilities. For analysis, the current weather forecast models cut up the globe into gridded squares of 12-km sides; the newer BFS model breaks it down into 6-km sides – leading to a four-fold improvement. 'India is the only country that will now provide operational weather forecasts at a 6 km by 6 km resolution. Until now we have been able to give block-level forecasts five days ahead; now we can give up to the level of a panchayat, or a few villages. This is useful because there can be important weather variations even within a block,' said M. Mohapatra, Director-General, IMD. Science Minister Jitendra Singh said: 'The efforts are Indian, the technology is Indian, and the beneficiaries are Indian. This is true Atmanirbharta. Moreover, this system will also benefit other tropical regions globally, which face the most complex and variable weather challenges.' Another major change, said Mr. Ravichandran, was using a new 'grid structure'. Earlier, weather models would break the globe into equal-sized grids. 'Now we use a grid-structure called the triangular-cubic octahedral (TCO). This generates more grids, and therefore higher resolution, over the tropical regions than the poles. As weather here is more volatile, this is more important for our forecast purposes,' he said. However, the new system would not yet be able to significantly improve forecasts of phenomenon such as sudden, severe thunderstorms. 'We have different models for that. We are in the process of installing 34 Doppler Weather Radars, in the coming year, which will add to the existing 53,' Mr. Mohapatra added. The improved forecasting system is made possible with high performance computing systems 'Arka' and 'Arunika' located at the IITM, Pune and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, Delhi. The IITM system is equipped with a capacity of 11.77 Peta FLOPS and 33 petabytes of storage, while the NCMRWF facility features 8.24 Peta FLOPS with 24 petabytes of storage. Additionally, there is a dedicated standalone system for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning applications with a capacity of 1.9 Peta FLOPS. A peta-flop is one quadrillion floating-point operations per second.
The Hindu
25-05-2025
- Climate
- The Hindu
Government to unveil Bharat Forecasting System on May 26
The government will on Monday (May 26, 2025) unveil a new 'Bharat Forecasting System' that will enable the weather office to provide more accurate and localised predictions. Developed by Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Bharat Forecasting System (BFS) will provide forecasts with a 6 km resolution — the highest in the world — that would allow forecasters to predict small-scale weather features more accurately. 'We will now be able to issue more localised and accurate weather forecasts,' M. Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, told PTI. The new forecasting model, developed by researchers, including Parthasarathy Mukhopadhayay, was made possible due to installation of the new supercomputer Arka at the IITM campus last year with a capacity of 11.77 petaflops (a unit to measure computer processing speed)and storage capacity of 33 petabytes (a petabyte is 1,000 terabytes (TB)). '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,' Mr. Mukhopadhyay told PTI. Mr. Ravichandran said BFS 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. He said data from a network of 40 Doppler Weather Radars from across the country will be used to run the BFS model that would enable the weather office to issue more localised forecasts as well as nowcasts — weather forecasts for the next two hours. Gradually, the number of Doppler radars will increase to 100, which would allow the weather office to issue nowcasts across the country. BFS can provide 6 km resolution forecasts for the tropical region that falls between 30 degrees South and 30 degrees North latitudes. The Indian mainland extends between 8.4 degrees North and 37.6 degrees North latitudes. According to Mr. Ravichandran, the global forecast models run by the European, British and U.S. weather offices have a resolution between 9 km and 14 km. Union Earth Sciences Minister Jitendra Singh is scheduled to dedicate BFS to the nation at a special function here on Monday (May 26, 2025). '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.
