Harsh Vardhan, the Minister of Earth Sciences, has introduced a mobile application named “Mausam,” offering city-specific weather forecasts, nowcasts, and warnings. Developed collaboratively by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune, and the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the app aims to enhance public access to weather-related information.
Minister Vardhan emphasized the need for substantial financial investments, approximately twice the current budget, to improve observational networks, replace aging ships, and acquire new computing resources. The “Mausam” app is now accessible on both Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store, providing a range of services.
The application furnishes real-time weather details, including temperature, humidity, wind speed, and direction for 200 cities, with updates occurring eight times a day. Additionally, it issues nowcasts, three-hourly warnings for local weather phenomena and their intensity across approximately 800 stations and districts. In instances of severe weather, the app incorporates the impact in its warnings.
Furthermore, “Mausam” delivers a seven-day weather forecast for approximately 450 cities in India, along with retrospective weather information from the past 24 hours. The app features a color-coded alert system (red, yellow, orange) issuing warnings for all districts twice a day for up to five days, serving as an advance notice for potentially hazardous weather conditions.
