Malayali genius behind India's indigenous Bharat Forecasting System

PALAKKAD: Palakkad native A G Prajeesh has reasons to be proud with the launch of India's indigenous Bharat Forecasting System (BFS), which predicts weather with an accuracy of over 60 per cent. As a scientist at IITM, Prajeesh was involved in its development.

BFS was developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology. Prajeesh (37), a native of Vaniyamkulam Manisseri, became a scientist at IITM through special recruitment in 2011. After training, he got a job in 2013. The initial works of BFS started in 2019. It was built by a team of 12 people led by Parthasarathi Mukhopadhyay. Prajeesh was at IITM until 2022.

Now, he is a research specialist at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia.

Prajeesh completed his graduation from Ottappalam NSS College and holds a postgraduate degree in Oceanography from the University of Science and Technology, Kochi. He also has a doctorate in Atmospheric Science from the University of Pune. He is the son of Athipotta Gopinathan and Rajani.

BFS is the world's first indigenously developed ultra-high resolution weather model. It is powered by the Arka supercomputer and data from 40 Doppler weather radars. It is more accurate than the weather forecasting systems of the US, UK and the European Union. Even small weather changes can be accurately predicted. It can also identify extreme weather events, such as floods, cyclones, and heatwaves, with 30% accuracy.

“Currently, the BFS uses data from a network of 40 Doppler weather radars. The plan is to increase this to 100. This will increase the forecasting capacity.” Said A.G. Prajeesh.