Bharat Forecast System
Also called: BFS · Topic: Atmosphere: Composition, Structure and Elements of Weather · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Bharat Forecast System (BFS) is a weather model made in India. It is a computer program that uses observed data to work out what the atmosphere will do next. It was built by IITM Pune under the Ministry of Earth Sciences and launched in 2025. It forecasts at about 6 km resolution, which means it divides the Earth into grid boxes about 6 km wide. This is among the finest of any global model (verify current). Smaller boxes help it pick up local events such as heavy rain over a single district.
Example
The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune, Maharashtra, runs BFS on supercomputers. Its forecasts help IMD warn individual districts about heavy rain and thunderstorms.
Don't confuse with
- Mission Mausam: a wider government programme, approved in September 2024 and launched in January 2025. It aims to make India "weather-ready and climate-smart" with more radars, more AWS and better models. BFS is one of those models.
Related concepts
- India Meteorological Department
- Weather forecasting
- IMD colour-coded weather warnings
- Mission Mausam