The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has adopted the new Bharat Forecast System (BFS) for more accurate weather predictions.
It will give better rain forecasts down to the panchayat level.
BFS will mainly improve short-term (3-day) and medium-term (7-day) forecasts.
Long-range forecasts (like monthly ones) will not see much improvement yet.
BFS was developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) and tested since 2002.
The system showed clear improvement in predicting heavy rainfall events in advance.
This is possible due to better weather models and use of more powerful computers.
The model now uses a 6 km by 6 km grid, compared to the older 12 km by 12 km — a four-fold increase in resolution.
India is now the only country giving regular weather forecasts at this high resolution.
The BFS system does not yet improve thunderstorm forecasts, which need separate models.
IMD is working on this by installing 34 Doppler Weather Radars across the country.
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