Latest news with #MrutyunjayMohapatra
Mint
08-07-2025
- Climate
- Mint
Climate change is shrinking India's weather forecast window, says IMD chief
New Delhi: Climate change is making it harder to forecast India's weather with the same lead time, said Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general of meteorology at the India Meteorological Department (IMD). In an interview, Mohapatra warned that the growing frequency of localized extreme weather events is reducing the predictability of traditional weather patterns. 'If I could earlier predict heavy rainfall three days in advance, now I may only be able to forecast it one and a half days ahead," he said. 'That's the impact climate change is having on our systems." Mohapatra noted that the frequency, intensity, and duration of heat waves have risen in India's heat-core zones across north and central India. At the same time, central and peninsular India are witnessing more heavy rainfall events, while lightning and thunderstorms have become more frequent in eastern and northeastern states. These shifts carry widespread consequences. Extreme weather, ranging from cyclones and droughts to hailstorms and floods, not only endangers lives and civic infrastructure but also disrupts food supply chains, pushing up prices of fruits and vegetables and adding to inflationary pressures. Climate risks also weigh heavily on insurers, who must contend with rising claims due to lightning-related deaths and property damage. India's 2024-25 Economic Survey warned that heat and water stress could significantly affect crop yields, threatening the country's food security. According to Mohapatra, 2024 was the warmest year on record. 'If you look at the warmest years in the past 120 years, most of them have occurred in the last two decades," he said. 'This is not just about extreme weather. It can also affect socio-economic conditions." A recent report by the Centre for Science and Environment, a Delhi-based think tank, underlines the rising frequency of such events. In the first nine months of 2024, India recorded extreme weather on 255 out of 274 days—93% of the time. These events caused 3,238 deaths, damaged over 235,000 homes and buildings, destroyed crops across 3.2 million hectares, and killed nearly 9,500 livestock. The ongoing monsoon season has further highlighted the growing toll. In Himachal Pradesh, torrential rains since 20 June triggered cloudbursts, landslides, and flash floods. At least 80 people have died in rain-related incidents, 38 are missing, and more than 120 have been injured, according to the State Emergency Operations Centre. Roads, bridges, and public infrastructure have suffered widespread damage. Despite the growing unpredictability, Mohapatra pointed out that the IMD's forecast accuracy has improved significantly over the last decade. 'In the past 10 years, our forecasting accuracy has increased by 40% to 50%, even with climate change in the backdrop," he said. 'That's because we've upgraded our observation systems, modelling, communication, forecasting and early warning capabilities." Mohapatra also noted that severe cyclonic storms over the Arabian Sea have been on the rise since the 1990s—a trend aligned with broader climate models. Meanwhile, western disturbances—crucial for India's winter rainfall—are showing a declining trend. These moisture-laden storms from the Mediterranean region are vital for snowfall and winter rains across north India, particularly in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Jammu & Kashmir. This precipitation supports rabi crops such as wheat and barley and sustains water reservoirs through snowmelt. 'The declining frequency of western disturbances due to climate change could impact not just water availability but also crop productivity," Mohapatra said.
India Gazette
05-07-2025
- Business
- India Gazette
India's First Weather Derivative aims to protect farmers from weather volatility
New Delhi [India], July 5 (ANI): Highlighting the potential benefits of the recent Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) and the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Dr Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, Director General of IMD, said the collaboration would provide critical climate insights for the agriculture sector. He noted that farmers and agri-based industries can use historical weather data to assess whether areas are drought-prone, flood-prone, or receive normal rainfall. 'So, under this memorandum of understanding, rainfall has been taken into consideration because rain is the most important parameter concerning agriculture and hence the economy. Towards this direction, the historical data will also be provided by IMD so that there can be an assessment with respect to the climatic hazard potential of rainfall during the monsoon season. And also the real-time rainfall; whatever is available from IMD in the gridded format or point rainfall will be provided to assess the variation of rainfall on their end and also to provide the services,' he added. 'Agriculture in our country depends especially on monsoon rain because 70-90 per cent of rainfall occurs in this season,' IMD DG Mrityunjay Mohapatra said. 'On the real-time rainfall, they can find out whether it is as per the climatological trend or there is a deviation... Accordingly, there could be some decisions concerning agriculture as well as agro-business and industry,' he added. Based on this information, stakeholders can make informed decisions in agriculture, agro-business, and related industries, IMD DG added. National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited (NCDEX) and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 26 Jun 2025. This strategic alliance lays the critical groundwork for the launch of India's first weather derivatives--a long-anticipated market instrument designed to help farmers and allied sectors hedge against climate-related risks such as erratic rainfall, heatwaves, and unseasonal weather events. With this partnership, NCDEX will develop a rainfall-based derivative product, among others, using historical and real-time datasets sourced from IMD. These datasets are extensively graded and quality verified, offering high-precision insights that can mimic real-world conditions with statistical accuracy. The weather product to be developed under this collaboration will enable seasonal and location-specific derivative contracts. They shall advance expertise on weather-related risks across agriculture, transportation, and allied industries. Arun Raste, Managing Director & CEO, NCDEX, said, 'This partnership with IMD opens the door to a new era in commodity markets. Weather derivatives have long been a foundational need towards building a climate-resilient rural economy. With climate volatility increasingly affecting the productivity and income of farmers, these instruments provide a market-based solution to weather risk. It gives me immense pleasure that NCDEX has taken the first step in bringing this innovation to India, empowering farmers, traders, and even sectors like tourism and transport to manage climate uncertainty more effectively.' The collaboration will support capacity-building, joint research, and training programmes for stakeholders including FPOs, agri-traders, policy think tanks, and analysts. (ANI)
Mint
03-07-2025
- Climate
- Mint
IMD to buy two Isro satellites to help improve weather forecast
New Delhi: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) plans to ask the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) to build and launch two-fourth generation INSAT series satellites, helping improve the accuracy of its weather forecasting. These new satellites will replace IMD's two third-generation INSAT satellites by 2028-29 and at cost of ₹ 1,800 crore, said IMD director general Mrutyunjay Mohapatra in an interview. The upgraded satellites will give a better resolution of images and be equipped with state-of-the-art sensors for lightning forecasting, said Mohapatra. As many as 162 people were killed by lightning strikes in March and April. Mohapatra said, "In remote areas like oceans, hills, the Himalayas and polar regions, one cannot take observations by putting up the instruments. So, here the department goes for the remote sensing instruments like radars and satellites. 'Radars have limitations because a radar can cover only up to 500 kilometers at any particular place and you cannot put radar in the sea or hill peaks where you do not have any communication system or roads or water. So therefore, a satellite becomes very handy though its accuracy is less as compared to the ground truth and radars.' IMD has been using satellite technology extensively for weather monitoring and forecasting. This started with the use of photographs from Television Infrared Observation Satellites (TIROS-1) launched by the US in 1960. The two satellites currently used by IMD have a one-kilometer in visible range and 4 km infrared range. 'Then we have cascaded these two satellites so that every 15 minutes you get an image. The satellite is geostationary. Apart from this there are other sensors in the satellite which provide other information like say winds and humidity, water vapour you can say. So, these information's we get it from our own satellites,' IMD also gets data from European, Japanese and Korean satellites. According to him, there is a cooperation among the countries that is called coordinated group of meteorological satellites. However, there are still gaps in detecting small-scale weather events, such as cloudbursts, thunderstorms, and lightning due to a lack of high-resolution data, products, and satellite-based tools. "Considering this, Isro would be developing INSAT-4 series with better sensors and resolution," said Mohapatra. The assimilation of satellite data in the models has improved the accuracy in short to medium range forecasting by about 20% to 30%, according to IMD.
New Indian Express
01-07-2025
- Climate
- New Indian Express
Above-normal rainfall expected in July: IMD
NEW DELHI: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast a wetter and cooler July than usual. Major parts of the country may experience above-normal rainfall and below-normal temperatures. However, most regions in Northeast and East India, along with several areas in extreme South Peninsular India and some parts of Northwest India, are likely to receive below-normal rainfall. The IMD states that the overall monthly average rainfall for July 2025 is expected to be above normal, exceeding 106% of the Long Period Average (LPA). The typical rainfall for July is around 280 mm. Above-normal rainfall can significantly benefit agriculture and water resources. However, IMD warned of the natural hazards it can cause. 'There are potential risks such as flooding, landslides, surface transport disruptions, public health challenges, and ecosystem damage,' said Dr Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, Director General Meteorology. He advised utilising IMD's early warnings for surveillance. Regarding temperature, the IMD forecasts that monthly average minimum temperatures are expected to be normal to below normal over many parts of the country, while rainfall is predicted to be above normal. However, in some regions, such as Northeast India and Southern Peninsular India, , rainfall predicted to be below normal may actually be above normal. India received 9% above the normal average monsoon rainfall in June 2025. However, East (-16.9%) and South India (-2.7%) received deficient rainfall, while Northwest (42.2%) and Central India (24.8%) received surplus rain in June. The rainfall pattern of June was uneven. Although the monsoon arrived on May 24, rather than the expected June 1, it spread across half the country by June 4. After that, two weeks of dry spells set in. The surplus rain mostly happened in the past two weeks. In the past two weeks, June has experienced 13 days of low-pressure areas.
Hindustan Times
01-07-2025
- Climate
- Hindustan Times
Maharashtra likely to receive above-normal rainfall in July: IMD
Maharashtra is expected to witness widespread above-normal rainfall in July 2025, according to the India Meteorological Department's (IMD) Monthly Outlook for Rainfall and Temperature report released on June 30. Being part of the monsoon core zone, the state is likely to receive enhanced rainfall activity, with particular concern for the Krishna and Godavari river basins where extreme category rainfall is anticipated. The weather department released a colour-coded probabilistic rainfall map indicating that most parts of Maharashtra are likely to experience above-normal rainfall in July. (REPRESENTATIVE PIC) Addressing a virtual press conference on Monday, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general of meteorology, IMD, said that special attention needs to be paid to the two river basins due to the elevated risk of flooding and related hazards. The heavy rainfall could significantly impact the surrounding regions, necessitating vigilant monitoring of river water levels, tributaries, and reservoirs. The forecast for July is part of IMD's probabilistic monthly rainfall outlook based on the Multi-Model Ensemble (MME) forecasting system. The advanced method utilises inputs from various coupled global climate models (CGCMs), including those developed under IMD's Monsoon Mission Climate Forecasting System (MMCFS). On climatic conditions influencing the monsoon activity, Mohapatra said that currently, neutral El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions prevail over the equatorial Pacific Ocean and are expected to persist through the remainder of the monsoon season, according to MMCFS and other international climate models. The weather department released a colour-coded probabilistic rainfall map indicating that most parts of Maharashtra are likely to experience above-normal rainfall in July. Mohapatra emphasised need for continuous monitoring and proactive administrative response, especially as the month is expected to see an increase in the number of days with low-pressure systems (LPS), similar to the pattern observed in June that contributed significantly to rainfall over central India and along the western coast. 'In June alone, we recorded 13 LPS days, compared to the long-term average of just 2.8 days for the month,' said Mohapatra, adding that the trend of increased low-pressure activity is likely to continue into July. The IMD outlook of timely rains will benefit the agriculture sector and gives a warning signal for potential extreme weather events.
