With plans to implement Artificial Intelligence for weather forecasting and especially for issuing nowcasts, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) is thinking to improve 3-6 hours extreme weather forecasts. IMD’s Director General Mrutunjay Mohapatra stated this on Sunday. He delineated that usage of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is comparatively new in Weather Forecasting than other fields.

Mohapatra said that IMD has send invitations to research groups to study Artificial Intelligence’s usability in improving weather forecasting. The Ministry of Earth Sciences is considering the proposals.

Mohapatra said that IMD has plans to implement collaborative studies regarding this alongside other institutions.

Using different tools like radars, satellite imagery, and to issue nowcasts, IMD gets information about extreme weather conditions that is going to take place in the coming 3-6 hours.

IMD is specialized in issuing extreme weather forecasts like thunderstorms and dust storms. Predictions of thunderstorms that come with lightning, squall and heavy rains are difficult than predicting cyclones as extreme weather events come and go in shorter time intervals.

In the previous month, 160+ people died because of lightning in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar alone.

Now, IMD has plans of bettering nowcast predictions by implementing AI and Machine Learning.

Mohapatra eludicated that AI helps in getting hold of previous weather models and has prowess to make decision-making for weather prediction in a rapid pace.

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) of the United State declared new strategies this year for expanding the agency’s application of four emerging science and technology related areas - NOAA Unmanned Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Omics, and the Cloud. It is done for guiding transformative qualitative advancements and timeliness of NOAA science, products and services.

Being a suite of advanced methods, Omics helps in analyzing materials like DNA, RNA and proteins.

Artificial Intelligence is predicted to overarching goal of the NOAA Artificial Intelligence Strategy for utilizing AI in advance NOAA’s requirements driven mission priorities.

NOAA declared this – it is finding ways to decrease cost of data processing and deliver higher quality, timely scientific products and services for societal benefits.