Weather prediction, once the exclusive turf of the state-run India Meteorological Department (IMD), is increasingly entering the entrepreneurial domain in India. Crucial sectors like power, agriculture and disaster management are now leveraging the expertise of weather forecasting companies to tackle the elemental challenges more effectively.
For a catastrophe-prone country like India, accuracy in weather forecasts is pivotal to cope with natural disasters that routinely ravage human life, infrastructure and the economy. According to a survey by industry lobby PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, floods in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in 2013 killed 5,500 people while causing US$2 billion loss to the state’s tourism industry which contributes 25-30% to its GDP.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) pegged the economic cost of natural catastrophes and manmade disasters worldwide at US$370 billion in 2011.
In her essay ‘Improving weather forecasts for the developing world’, American climatologist Judith Curry estimates that flooding in the Ganga and Brahmaputra basin has displaced over 40 million people in each of the past few years while severe storms, Sidr in 2007 and Nargis in 2008, caused over 148,000 fatalities in Bangladesh and Myanmar. “Because the resilience of poor populations is low and falls with each crisis, the cumulative effects are relentlessly impoverishing,” concludes Curry.
Till a few years ago, India, considered to be seriously deficient in its forecasting infrastructure, had only the 140-year-old IMD to rely on weather data. However, the organisation’s tardy monsoonal forecasts have had ramifications for the agriculture sector and other businesses, and created a need for better weather prediction. Among IMD’s significant failures was its inability to predict the droughts of 2002, 2004 and 2009 leading to widespread distress among farmers.
An analysis by the Wall Street Journal earlier this year revealed that given the generous 4% margin of error within which the IMD operates, it has got the annual monsoon levels right only six times in the last 21 years. (Despite repeated attempts by this correspondent, IMD didn’t oblige with an interview).
“With its varied topography and climate — from tropical in the south to temperate in the north and heavy snowfall in the northern echelons — India poses extreme challenges for forecasters,” says Sudeep Ganguly, a consultant with The Energy Research Institute (TERI). “However, the increased importance of weather and climate to society and commerce around the world is creating a burgeoning need for superior services and sharply forecasted weather.”
Private edge
This is where private companies like Skymet, Express Weather, Weather Risk and a slew of other smaller players come into play. These outfits are not only offering more accurate weather predictions, but also releasing related data more frequently and faster. Buttressed by an ensemble cast of meteorologists, scientists, programmers and developers as well as wherewithal like automatic weather stations which can measure temperature, humidity, wind speed, wind direction and rainfall accurately every hour, and transmit it speedily to computers via cable or satellite, the organisations have a definite edge over IMD.
The companies usually make four types of weather forecasts – `now-casting’ which involves predicting weather conditions up to 24 hours in advance; short-range forecasts that are valid up to 72 hours ahead; medium range ones that relate to conditions for a period of four to 10 days; and long-range forecasting that assesses weather conditions for a minimum of 30 days or up to an entire season like the monsoons for instance.
“In the long range, we have not got a single monsoon wrong yet,” states Skymet founder and CEO Jatin Singh, claiming a 75% success rate for his company’s monsoon prediction. The entrepreneur launched his company in 2003 with a pan-India network of sensors in towns and villages to predict weather. These sensors transmit data to a centrally located computer in Noida (a district in northern Uttar Pradesh), where it is collected and collated. The information is then processed, packaged and despatched to different clients, including farmers. Apart from providing forecasts on temperature, rainfall, humidity and the like, Skymet also provides agri-advisory and crop statistics along with customized weather forecasts.
According to G.P. Sharma, vice president of meteorology at Skymet, unlike the West, India sorely lacks public-private partnerships in the field of meteorology which stymies growth and development in this crucial sector. “Our projects require us to put up weather radars for forecasts, but often we don’t get the requisite clearances from state governments. They cite ‘security reasons’ or hazards arising out of electromagnetic radiation from our radars as the reason. Once, the Uttarakhand government requested us to set up radars for more accurate weather prediction as the state is highly vulnerable to natural disasters. But we couldn’t get the requisite clearances, so the project had to be dropped.”
Currently, Skymet has over 3,000 weather stations across India which offer bespoke weather predictions to a diverse clientele from power, agriculture and insurance sectors. “Such predictions are imperative for an agricultural economy like India and especially states like Maharashtra which are rain-fed unlike northern states like Punjab and Haryana which are still relatively better irrigated,” explains Sharma.
The company is also setting up a global research and development centre in the US while working with state governments to augment their capacity in flood and disaster management. Skymet’s weather data also finds several novel applications across the agriculture value chain—from farmers to agri-input companies as well as financial services firms that provide crop insurance.
“When climate change is staring us in the face, accurate predictions and warnings can mean the difference between saving thousands of lives or not,” states Sonu Agrawal who founded Weather Risk in 2004. The company has a network of 1,000 weather stations across nine states, including Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Weather Risk’s operations currently straddle India, Africa, South East Asia and the US.
“We are pioneers of index based weather insurance in India which helps insurance companies offer better policies, directly enabling one million farmers to access insurance against weather in a better way. We also help farmers to adopt world class practices for tilling to sowing to harvesting and marketing,” states Agrawal.
For Kolkata-based Express Weather founder and CEO Angshujyoti Das, it was the paucity of weather data on the Sundarbans while doing a UNESCO project that propelled him to the business of forecasting. For the UN registered ‘Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System’, Das had to study the weather in tsunami prone areas in South East Asia and send alerts.
While implementing a sustainable ecotourism project in the Sundarbans, he approached the IMD for some wind data but was told they didn’t have any. “The absence of accurate weather data also meant that the local inhabitants of the Sundarbans were vulnerable to all sorts of calamities, and, therefore, had no security of life,” Das says.
Ultimately, the project had to be jettisoned for lack of data. But Das ended up launching his company that now provides detailed project reports, market research and allied services to diverse customers. One of his company’s apps – Farmneed – synergises crop science and micro weather data and is being used by over 25,000 farmers to help them plan their schedule for spraying pesticides, irrigation, sowing or harvesting.
“We have successfully leveraged technology to design long-term, transformative solutions for issues plaguing the agricultural domain. We also aim to minimise the volatility in crop yield and create forward linkages to other sectors,” adds Das.
Growing demand
Experts say demand for accurate weather predictions will get higher as the market for weather predictions expands to insurance, fast-moving consumer goods, seeds, fertilisers and power distribution.
According to Sanjeev P Unhale, secretary, Dilasa Janvikas Pratishthan, a non-profit working in the area of sustainable natural resource management, when the irreversible effects of climate change are inescapable, losses in crop production can be minimised by timely and accurate weather forecasts. “However, along with this, a large-scale climate change literacy drive also needs to be initiated with the help of farmers’ organisations and village communities,” adds the environmentalist.
The impact of climate change on South Asian countries is likely to be more severe than other geographical regions in the year to come, predicts Unhale. “India needs to play a more proactive role with various stakeholders to create interventions that don’t require a lot of infrastructure building, but innovation which speeds up action to mitigate the risks arising from imprecise weather forecasts.”
India can perhaps take a leaf out of Bangladesh’s book.
In the aftermath of the devastating 1998 floods, the Bangladeshi government teamed up with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and the Georgia Institute of Technology to launch a one to 10-day flood forecasting system – the Climate Forecast Applications Network. Today, the network produces daily forecasts of the Brahmaputra and Ganga river flows and transmits them to the Bangladesh Flood Forecast and Warning Centre. This helps authorities prepare better for natural disasters which may otherwise destroy thousands of innocent lives as well as infrastructure worth millions.