Maharashtra Adopts New Bharat Forecast System

Maharashtra became the first Indian state this week to fold the Bharat Forecast System, a high-resolution weather model developed in Pune, into its disaster-management machinery. The move comes days before the southwest monsoon is expected to advance toward the state, and as officials prepare for flooding, landslides, lightning and farm-level rainfall variability. BharatFS was developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, or IITM, and was officially adopted by the India Meteorological Department in May 2025. The state government is using it as a forecasting input to sharpen local warnings and response planning. ### What exactly did Maharashtra adopt? Maharashtra has integrated BharatFS into its disaster preparedness framework rather than launching a separate public weather agency of its own. Reports on May 21 and May 22 said the Maharashtra State Disaster Management Authority tied up with IITM, Pune, to use the model’s outputs for real-time situational awareness and early warnings tied to extreme weather. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) The Maharashtra State Disaster Management Authority is the state body responsible for preparedness, mitigation and emergency coordination. Its public website lists disaster planning, emergency operations and district coordination as core functions, which is where model-based warnings would be used. ### Why is BharatFS different from the forecasts India already had? The Ministry of Earth Sciences has said BharatFS runs at 6-km horizontal resolution, compared with roughly 12 km in the earlier operational system it replaced. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) That means forecasts can be generated for much smaller areas, closer to panchayat-cluster scale, which officials say improves short- and medium-range prediction and the handling of local terrain. (sdma.maharashtra.gov.in) A separate ministry reply said the system uses a Triangular Cubic Octahedral grid and was built to improve forecast skill for extreme weather. The India Meteorological Department’s numerical weather prediction pages now carry BharatFS products, though the site says final public forecasts should still come from IMD bulletins and warnings. ### Why does Maharashtra want this before the monsoon? (pib.gov.in) Maharashtra faces different monsoon risks across the Konkan coast, the Western Ghats, Mumbai, Marathwada and Vidarbha. A finer-grid model can help officials track localized heavy rain, flash flooding, landslide-prone mountain belts and thunderstorm activity that broader forecasts may smooth over. That is the operational case presented in reports on the state’s adoption. (pib.gov.in) The India Meteorological Department’s current monsoon information pages show the country is in the pre-monsoon transition period, while national agencies have already issued outlooks for the 2026 southwest monsoon season. On April 13, the government said rainfall for the June-September season was most likely to be below normal at 92% of the long-period average, with an updated forecast due in the last week of May 2026. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) ### Does this replace IMD forecasts? IMD adopted BharatFS nationally on May 26, 2025, but the agency’s own forecast pages say model output is guidance and that official forecasts remain the bulletins and warnings issued by IMD. In practice, Maharashtra’s move appears to be about plugging that guidance more directly into state disaster decisions, not replacing the national forecaster. (moes.gov.in) IITM’s role is the model-development side. IMD’s role is operational forecasting and public warning. Maharashtra’s role is using those inputs for state-level preparedness, including emergency coordination before and during high-impact weather. ### What should people watch next? Late May 2026 is the next key checkpoint because the government has said IMD will issue an updated monsoon forecast in the last week of the month. (pib.gov.in) Around the same period, media reports citing forecasters said monsoon conditions could reach Maharashtra and Mumbai in early June, making the first real test of the state’s BharatFS integration likely to come within days. (moes.gov.in) (thecsruniverse.com)