India Leaps Ahead in Weather Forecasting with ‘Arka’, Outpaces US & Europe

National News: The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has created a high -resolution numerical weather forecast model called 'Bharat Forecasting System - BFS', creating a new history in the accuracy of weather forecast and indigenous technology. This system will be formally dedicated to the nation by Union Earth Science Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh at Vigyan Bhawan on Monday.

With the launch of this new system, India has become the first country in the world, capable of giving accurate weather forecasting at 6 km ultra high-resolution grid level. While the systems of developed countries like Europe, Britain and America still work at 9 to 14 km resolution.

Weather information will now reach the panchayat level 

The forecast of IMD till now was limited to a 12 -km grid i.e. block level. But through BFS system, the forecast can be made available to the panchayat level within a radius of 6x6 km. With this, agriculture, water management, disaster relief and public safety measures will be more effective and accurate than before.

State-of-the-art supercomputer 'Arka' became Aadhaar

This system has been developed by Indian Tropical Meteorological Institute (IITM), Pune. A new supercomputer 'Arka' with a capacity of 11.77 petaflops and a data center equipped with storage capacity of 33 petabytes has been designed to run the BFS model. It is capable of processing the forecast faster - where the earlier systems used to take 10 hours, while Arca completes the calculation in just 4 hours.

IMD will be empowered by Doppler network

This model will run by obtaining data from a network of 40 Doppler radars across the country, and their number will be delivered to 100 in the next few years. With this, it will be possible to issue alert in any part of the country within two hours.

India leads in global competition

IMD Director General Dr. Mrityunjaya Mahapatra said, "Through BFS, India has overtaken countries like Europe, America and Britain. Now we have the highest resolution and speed weather system, which is not only a symbol of technical self -reliance, but will bring revolution in the fields of disaster loses, agricultural plans and civil security."