Accuracy in forecasting heavy rainfall for Coastal Karnataka up from 80 % to 92 % in five years

The accuracy in forecasting heavy rainfall for Coastal Karnataka improved from 80% in 2021 to 92% in 2025 for one day lead period, according to the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences.

The accuracy went up from 75% to 89% for two days lead period; from 77% to 87% for three days lead period; from 68% to 80% for four days lead period; and from 72% to 79% for five days lead period, Jitendra Singh, the Union Minister of State (independent charge) for Ministry of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences told the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

“Similarly, for South Interior Karnataka, it (the accuracy) improved from 58% to 70%; from 51% to 65%, from 45% to 67%, from 39% to 63%, and from 39% to 63% respectably during 2021 to 2025 at Day 1 to Day 5 lead period,” the minister said.

Overall 15-25 % improvement in Karnataka

“Overall, a 15-25% improvement is observed during 2020-2025 for day-1 to day-5 forecasts of heavy rainfall for Karnataka,” Mr. Singh said.

He replied to an unstarred question by 11 Members of Parliament, including that of Captain Brijesh Chowta of Dakshina Kannada. The question pertained to strengthening weather forecasting system in the country.

C-Band DWR in Mangaluru

The minister said that currently, 47 Doppler Weather Radars (DWRs) are in operation across the country, covering 87 % of the total area of the country. It included one C-Band Doppler Weather Radar operational which went operational at Shaktinagar, Mangaluru from November 26, 2025.

Heat Action Plans have also been taken up in collaboration with the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC). Additionally, the Ministry of Earth Sciences launched Mission Mausam with the goal of making India a “Weather -ready and Climate -smart” nation, aiming to mitigate the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events, he said.

The minister said that Meteorological Centre, Bengaluru, is constantly seeking feedback from the user communities as well as KSNDMC for strengthening the last-mile delivery of weather and climate advisories. In this regard, an MoU has been signed with the GPS Institute of Agricultural Management and MC Bengaluru to ensure the timely delivery of weather and climate advisories to farmers across Karnataka, in addition to Agromet Field Units (AMFUs).

Farmers connected through WhatsApp groups

Because of initiation and specific intervention from the Government, a total of 3,63,806 farmers across Karnataka are also directly connected in WhatsApp groups and are directly receiving forecasts and warnings. For fisherfolk and vulnerable communities, including coastal fishing communities, warnings are also disseminated via WhatsApp through the district collector groups, he said.

“Regarding climate services, from 2021 onwards, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has been using the Multi-Model Ensemble (MME)-based forecasting strategy to prepare monthly and seasonal forecasting of temperature and rainfall. The accuracy of monsoon prediction over the country has shown marked improvement, with the average absolute error of all India forecast of 2.28% of the Long Period Average (LPA) during the period 2021-2024, compared to that of 7.5% in the preceding four years (2017–2020),” he said.