IMD launches new system to improve weather forecasts

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has launched a new Ensemble Prediction Systems (EPS) to provide probabilistic weather forecasts up to the next 10 days.

According to IMD, these new systems shall improve upon deterministic forecasts that are prone to high margins of error. The EPS involves generation of multiple forecasts using slightly varying initial conditions.

The 450-crore acquisition of eight petaflops



high-power computing systems will help in generating newer forecasts which have a higher resolution of 12km instead of the 23km resolution that has been in use till now. The forecast related to the intensity of the weather will also be more accurate and colour coded.

The new model has been developed jointly by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting.