NEW DELHI: India on Monday unveiled a home-grown weather forecasting system with a spatial resolution of six km — the highest in the world — that would enable the weather office to issue more localised and accurate forecasts.Developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), the Bharat Forecasting System (BFS) will be operational from this monsoon season and place India among the global leaders in weather prediction, Earth Sciences Minister Jitendra Singh said.The BFS will be the only global numerical weather prediction system in the world deployed at such a high resolution, representing a major advancement in India’s forecasting capabilities.The numerical global forecast models run by the European, British and US weather offices have a resolution between 9 km and 14 km.”The tropical region is a chaotic region for weather. The change in weather patterns is unpredictable and higher resolution models are required to capture the spatial changes,” M Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences said.”Earlier, we used to issue one forecast for four villages. The BFS will enable us to issue separate forecasts for each of the four villages,” he said.Singh said the BFS would boost monsoon tracking, aviation, cyclone monitoring and disaster management, agriculture, waterways, defence, and flood forecasting, and also support key ministries.”A proud marker of our rise as the world’s fourth largest economy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this unique forecast system promises to supplement India’s economy by saving on potential losses and simultaneously adding on potential gains,” Singh said.
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