India commissions new systems for predicting extreme weather events.

The government on Friday commissioned two very high-resolution weather prediction systems, making it possible for the country’s national weather forecaster - India Meteorological Department (IMD) - to predict severity and intensity of rainfall, wind speed, and other parameters for smaller area (roughly size of a normal block) with 10-day probabilistic forecasts.

The advance prediction will provide more preparatory and emergency response time to disaster management authorities in the particular area of extreme weather events.

The new system - state-of-the-art global Ensemble Prediction Systems (EPS) -will have a resolution of 12 km grid scale, unlike the present system having a resolution of 23 km grid.

“The probabilistic forecasts of severe weather events at 12 km grid scale across India will greatly help the disaster management authorities and other users in making better emergency response decisions by explicitly accounting for the uncertainty in weather forecasts,” said Madhavan Rajeevan, secretary of the ministry of earth sciences (MoES).

Jointly commissioning the EPS with the IMD director general K J Ramesh, Rajeevan said the probabilistic forecasts would also be very useful for various sectors of the economy including agriculture, water resources, tourism and renewable energy.

The two prediction systems are expected to significantly enhance weather information by quantifying uncertainties in the weather forecast. The EPS involves the generation of multiple forecasts, using slightly varying initial conditions, which will be available for 10 days at a time.

The frameworks of the new EPSs are among the best weather prediction systems in the world at present. Very few forecasting centres in the world use this high resolution for short-medium range probabilistic weather forecasts,” said Rajeevan.

Emphasising that his ministry has committed to transforming India into a “Weather Ready” nation, he said the MoES was also working to implement a more effective mechanism for dissemination of weather and climate forecasts to different stakeholders using different communication channels.

The new systems have been put together by scientists of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), Noida and India Meteorological Department (IMD).(Source: The Times of India)