DRDO successfully tests ULPGM-V3 missile | All about the indigenous weaponThe defence ministry informed in a statement that the trials were conducted at a DRDO test range near Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh using an integrated GCS. Updated on: May 20
The Trinamool Congress’ Falta candidate Jahangir Khan on Tuesday announced that he has withdrawn from the repolling in the Assembly constituency, two days ahead of voting. “This decision is for Falta’s development and the public good, following the chief minister’s special package
MCG eyes ₹8.85 crore penalty over delay in Wazirabad stadium projectOfficials said the contractor failed to deploy adequate manpower and machinery despite the project’s July 2026 completion deadline. Published on: May 20, 2026 7:39 AM IST By Leena Dhankhar Share via Copy link The Municipal
One of the most expensive Korean films ever made, this epic sci-fi begins as a "breathless rollercoaster ride" and mashes up The Terminator, Predator, Aliens and Avatar. The films that compete for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival are known for their depth
At Google I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai underlines focus on AI agentsGemini Omni, Gemini 3.5 Flash and Spark are a step towards evolving Gemini into an AI system that can reason, create and act. Published on: May 20, 2026 6:45 AM IST By Vishal Mathur Share via Copy link In the first key developer
BBC documentary row: Moose Wala’s father given time till July 29 to file replyDuring the hearing, the additional civil judge (senior division) granted the singer’s father more time and directed him to submit a reply at the next hearing on July 29 Published on: May 20
Who is Andrej Karpathy? OpenAI cofounder and one of AI’s most influential figures joins AnthropicAndrej Karpathy, a founding member of OpenAI, has joined Anthropic. The 39-year-old announced his move to Anthropic on Tuesday. Updated on: May 20
Asus Zenbook Duo’s real Intel chip leap meets an overwhelming utility crisisWhile it is faster with a gorgeous OLED showcase, dual screen practicality and price tag value remains elusive Published on: May 19, 2026 5:51 PM IST By Vishal Mathur Share via Copy link It is becoming increasingly
AI models ace their predictions of India’s monsoon rains
The Indian monsoon, which usually begins its slow northward sweep around the start of June, brings three-quarters of the country's annual rainfall. That makes it essential for agriculture, on which almost half of Indians depend. But the monsoon is notoriously hard to predict. It is driven by differences in temperature between land and sea, the amount of snow cover on the Himalayas, soil moisture and many other far-flung influences. And climate change is making the guessing game even harder.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) does its best, using the numerical weather prediction (NWP) models that have been a staple of meteorology for decades. Run on supercomputers, these divide the world into a three-dimensional grid, populate each box with variables representing temperature, pressure, wind speed and so on, and then crunch through zillions of calculations to try to simulate how things will evolve over time. Those models allow the IMD to offer broad guidance—such as whether to expect more rain than usual, or less—a month or so ahead. But detailed information about what the rains will do day-by-day is not considered reliable more than about five days out.
This year, though, the Indian government tried something new. About 38m farmers received forecasts generated not by an NWP model, but by ones powered by artificial intelligence (AI) instead. These work in a different way: rather than going to the trouble of trying to simulate, equation by equation, exactly what is going on in the atmosphere, they mostly make their predictions by comparing the patterns they see in weather data with previous, similar patterns in the historical weather records on which they have been trained.
The models aced their test. In some regions, they predicted when the rain would arrive 30 days ahead. They also forecast that rainfall would stall in the middle of the season—as it did, for 20 days—despite this not appearing in the NWP forecasts. Almost half of the farmers who paid attention to the messages later said that the information influenced their decisions on what to plant and when—though it is still too early to assess whether this will influence their eventual earnings.
None of this would have been possible even five years ago. But in 2022 Nvidia, an American chip designer, published the first results from FourCastNet, an AI weather program trained on decades of weather data. The company claimed that it accurately predicted hurricanes and rainfall a week in advance with just two seconds of computing time—thousands of times less than what an NWP model needs. Tech firms and weather agencies began racing to build their own.
It quickly became apparent that relying solely on AI came with problems of its own. Unconstrained by the laws of physics, forecasts could become worryingly unrealistic. Fed only past data, the models often struggled to predict rare or extreme events—the same “edge case” problem that has dogged driverless cars.
So the focus switched to trying to combine the best of the old and the new. One of the two models used to forecast this year's monsoon was developed by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), an institute widely considered the world's best, for use alongside its existing NWP software. The other was a version of Google's NeuralGCM, which still grinds through calculations to represent big atmospheric processes, but then uses AI to fill in the details.
Pedram Hassanzadeh, an AI and extreme-weather researcher at the University of Chicago, thinks AI models could lead to a “democratisation of weather forecasting”. Numerical forecasts demand supercomputers and plenty of weather-observing stations to supply them with numbers. Poor countries often lack both.
The Human-Centered Weather Forecasts Initiative (HCF), which Dr Hassanzadeh helps lead, encourages governments to use AI to overcome both barriers. India's monsoon project, which was co-ordinated by the HCFI, used models that, once trained, could run on a high-end laptop. They could also be tweaked to focus on the best-quality data that were available. In India's case, that meant a long-running set of readings from rain gauges.
The HCF has funding (from the Gates Foundation, a big charity, and the United Arab Emirates) for similar work in east and west Africa. Like India, both regions experience distinct rainy seasons. It is teaching meteorological and agricultural officials from Bangladesh, Chile, Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria how to use AI weather models for their own particular needs.
Other bottlenecks are easing too. Like numerical models, AI models still depend on data assimilation—the process of converting messy observations from satellites and weather stations into a well-ordered snapshot of the atmosphere. That work remains concentrated among rich-country agencies with the resources to do it.
Hence the excitement when the ECMWF announced in October that it would make both its most up-to-date forecasts and its assimilated data freely available (it has already opened its historical archive). Some of that will be used by private companies employing AI weather forecasts to anticipate disruptions to their supply chains or make trading decisions. But it will also help many who previously struggled to get good forecasts at all.
Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines
to 100 year archives.
Source: HindustanTimes
Related Posts: Most flowers usually pick one father and stick with him The World Cup draw is usually a spectacle Three Dead, Four Injured As Violent Storms Sweep Romania New Zealand beats the West Indies by 4 wickets to sweep the ODI series 3 Immigration agents conducting sweep in NYC confronted by protesters Freeman at the double as Lions sweep past Queensland Reds 52-12 Lakshya Sen Bags Silver As Li Shi Feng Ensures Clean Sweep For China AIADMK led alliance will sweep 2026 polls with over 200 seats Afghanistan Complete 3-0 ODI Sweep Over Bangladesh With Dominant 200 Run Win India complete series clean sweep over West Indies
IIM graduate says she moved to Delhi for job, only to discover ‘there was no office’An IIM Bodh Gaya graduate relocated to Delhi for a promised job that turned out to be a scam. After spending ₹75,000, she found no office at the given address Updated on: May 20
1 minutes ago
IPL franchise values are soaring, projected to hit $15 billion by 2032. This growth rivals top European football clubs. Record media rights, strong sponsorships, and investor interest are driving this surge. Teams are expanding globally. This makes IPL an attractive institutional asset for
3 minutes ago
A Taiwanese ward chief contesting city council elections in the Kaohsiung municipality recently sparked a social media furore after putting up a billboard featuring an Indian flag and an illustration of a turbaned man, with several users alleging that the poster reflected racist attitudes
3 minutes ago
The Commission for Air Quality Management on Tuesday imposed Stage 1 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan in Delhi and the adjoining National Capital Region after the air quality slipped into the “poor” category. GRAP is a set of incremental anti-pollution measures that are
3 minutes ago
The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to examine a plea challenging the preventive detention of former journalist Satyam Verma under the National Security Act in connection with the Noida workers’ protest violence case, but refused to grant him interim relief, Live Law reported
3 minutes ago
Pep Guardiola is reportedly leaving Manchester City after ten years. This marks the end of a highly successful era for the club. Enzo Maresca is the expected successor. Guardiola's departure follows a season where City won two major trophies. He has secured twenty trophies during his tenure
3 minutes ago
From glazed skin to soft eye makeup: 5 easy makeup trends taking over summer evening beauty looksMakeup trends have significantly changed in the past few years. Here are some of the easy trends you can consider for summer evenings. Updated on: May 19
1 days ago
Enzo Maresca is set to replace Pep Guardiola as Manchester City manager before next season. As BBC Sport reported on Monday, iconic City boss Guardiola is expected to leave the club following this Sunday's home game against Aston Villa at Etihad Stadium, their final game of the season
1 days ago
The US Department of Justice has dropped criminal fraud charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and some officials of his firm, days after he agreed to settle a separate civil case. Adani Enterprises, his group's flagship firm, also agreed to pay $275m (£205m) to the US Treasury to settle
1 days ago
Sumit Jain, who had been elevated as cofounder and CEO of 's test-prep business last year, has stepped down from his role ahead of the company's planned merger with Ronnie Screwvala's upGrad Education.Jain, who had joined Unacademy in 2020 after the SoftBank-backed edtech bought Graphy
1 days ago
Summer vacation started and kids want to play outside? Paediatrician warns of 12 dangerous signs of heat exhaustionParents need to monitor children during summer vacation to prevent heat exhaustion. Know which are the observable signs which indicate medical emergency. Updated on: May 19
1 days ago
U.S. President Donald Trump said he was planning a major new assault on Iran on Tuesday (May 19, 2026), but held off as he saw hope for securing a so far elusive agreement to end the war. Mr. Trump said that he stopped his purported attack plan at the urging of Gulf Arab allies
1 days ago
The Ministry of External Affairs defended India’s record on democracy on Monday (May 18 2026), for the second time during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s European tour, over the PM’s decision not to take questions from the press. During the joint press appearance with Norwegian Prime Minister
1 days ago
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought responses from Aam Aadmi Party leaders Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and several others in criminal contempt proceedings against them for allegedly vilifying Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma on social media in connection with the liquor policy case
1 days ago
In just four days, Southampton are due to walk out at Wembley to take on Hull City in the richest game in world football - the Championship play-off final. But the fate of the match is in the hands of an English Football League independent disciplinary commission.In just four days
1 days ago
Noida CEO says he fired senior employee for asking him ‘Sir, tell me what to do?’The Noida-based founder and CEO of InstaAstro has revealed that he once fired a senior employee over lack of ‘ownership’ Updated on: May 19, 2026 2:04 PM IST By Sanya Jain Share via Copy link The Noida-based
1 days ago
In a bizarre twist that left the internet buzzing, a young boy’s bike was caught sounding like a local express train, thanks to a train horn he had illegally installed. The unusual stunt turned heads on the streets, startling pedestrians and confusing motorists who couldn’t believe a
1 days ago
Who is Helle Lyng, the Norway journalist who wanted to ask PM Modi a question?Helle Lyng grabbed headlines after calling out to PM Modi at the end of a joint press appearance with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store in Oslo. Updated on: May 19
1 days ago
Imtiaz Ali’s upcoming project, Main Vaapas Aaunga, is one of the most-awaited films of the year. It stars Diljit Dosanjh, Naseeruddin Shah, Vedang Raina, and Sharvari in key roles. On May 18, the entire team was seen gracing the trailer launch event in the city
1 days ago
Bakrid is around the corner, and that means family gatherings, festive feasts, and of course, a delicious plate of biryani. But if you don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen this Eid, celebrity chef Kunal Kapur has the perfect solution. His quick 10-minute biryani rice recipe promises all the
1 days ago
Tech Tonic | Musk v. Altman, and a reality of bickering adults holding AI’s keysAn unfortunate aside of this legal wrangle is where one is left wondering just how little trust AI’s leaders actually inspire Published on: May 19, 2026 12:06 PM IST By Vishal Mathur Share via Copy link Absolute
1 days ago
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to recall its directions issued last year that stray dogs picked by municipal authorities from public places must not be released back into the same area after they are vaccinated or sterilised, Live Law reported. As per the directions issued in November
1 days ago
Bengaluru-born techie outlines hidden financial, emotional struggles of chasing the NRI dreamA techie tells HT.com about the raw reality of the NRI dream, from a $70k student loan to battling extreme homesickness. Published on: May 19, 2026 1:31 PM IST By Trisha Sengupta Share via Copy link Moving
1 days ago
Raghava Lawrence defends Tamil Nadu CM Vijay for picking Rajmohan as Minister for Film Technology and Cinematograph ActTamil Nadu CM Vijay's decision to appoint Rajmohan as the Minister for Film Technology and Cinematograph Act in Tamil Nadu was questioned by Vishal. May 19, 2026
1 days ago
The death of 33-year-old Twisha Sharma in Bhopal has triggered a bitter and emotional battle between her family and in-laws, with both sides making serious and conflicting allegations as the police investigation continues. Twisha, a resident of Noida
1 days ago
SC allows euthanasia for rabid, incurably ill stray dogsSC allows euthanasia for rabid, incurably ill stray dogs Published on: May 19, 2026 1:45 PM IST PTI Share via Copy link New Delhi, The Supreme Court for the first time on Tuesday allowed euthanasia for rabid, incurably ill
1 days ago
and deeptech platform has appointed as its managing director and .Kumar joins Moglix's central leadership team with a mandate to build and scale the company's emerging business segments and new opportunity areas. He brings over two decades of experience across business leadership
1 days ago
