Bharat Forecast System (BFS)

Developed by: Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES)
Purpose: Improved short- (3 days) and medium-term (7 days) rainfall forecasting.
Replaces IMD’s older 12 km x 12 km grid model with 6 km x 6 km grid resolution (4× improvement).
India becomes the only country globally to provide operational forecasts at such high resolution.

Relevance

GS Paper 1 (Geography)

Monsoon, rainfall variability, weather systems in the tropics

GS Paper 3

Technology in governance: Use of HPC, AI, and indigenous tech for public service
Disaster Management: Early warning systems and resilience
Environment: Climate adaptation strategies

Reach and Accuracy

Earlier: Forecasts available at block level.
Now: Forecasts available up to the panchayat level, enabling hyper-local weather warnings.
BFS improves accuracy in predicting heavy rainfall, crucial for agriculture, disaster response, and planning.

Technological Advancements

1. Grid Innovation:

Uses Triangular-Cubic Octahedral (TCO) grid structure, unlike traditional global grids.
TCO increases resolution especially in tropical zones, where weather variability is high.

2.Indigenous Strength:

Fully developed under Atmanirbhar Bharat, using Indian scientific expertise and computing resources.
Potential to assist other tropical countries with complex monsoon and convection patterns.

3. Limitations & Enhancements

Current Limitation: Limited in predicting sudden severe thunderstorms.
Upcoming Enhancement:
- 34 new Doppler Weather Radars to be installed in 2025 (current: 53 radars).
- Will support real-time monitoring and nowcasting.

💻 Supercomputing Backbone of BFS

Facility	Location	Performance	Storage
Arka	IITM, Pune	11.77 PetaFLOPS	33 Petabytes
Arunika	NCMRWF, Delhi	8.24 PetaFLOPS	24 Petabytes
AI-ML System	(Supporting BFS computations)	1.9 PetaFLOPS	—

🔹 1 PetaFLOP = 10¹⁵ operations/second

Conclusion

The Bharat Forecast System (BFS) marks a leap in India’s meteorological capabilities, bridging technology with grassroots impact. From boosting climate resilience in agriculture to disaster preparedness, BFS is a significant stride in making forecasts faster, finer, and more localised.