NEW DELHI: India has made good progress in its weather forecasting system but its benefits still elude farmers and other citizens as the country’s capacity to predict extreme weather phenomena is restricted to the district level. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) will soon overcome its limitation by expanding its high-tech forecast facilities down to block level and extend its direct SMS alert system by adding 21 million farmers more to the network by July.
"We will begin to do this first for all the blocks in the 115 aspirational (most backward) districts as per the prime minister’s wish to put in additional focus there and achieve results on various fronts quickly," the ministry of earth sciences (MoES) secretary M Rajeevan told TOI on Sunday. He said the ministry planned to expand the facilities to 6,500 blocks across the country by the end of this year.
The ministry recently commissioned its High Performance Computer (HPC) system — named ‘Mihir’ (sun) — at the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting in Noida for this purpose. Besides helping the national weather forecaster predict extreme weather events at block level, ‘Mihir’ will help scientists arrive at high resolution seasonal/extended range forecasts of active/break spells of monsoons.
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