Mission Mausam unveiled to make India ‘weather ready’ and ‘climate smart’: All you need to know

As weather patterns become more uncertain, India has launched "Mission Mausam" to make the country 'weather-ready' and 'climate-smart'. The ₹2,000 crore initiative seeks to improve weather understanding and forecasting by expanding observation networks, improving modelling, and using tools like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (Ml).

The mission will include:

• Creating a laboratory to develop clouds artificially
• Increase radars by more than 150% and add new satellites.
• Develop cutting-edge weather surveillance technologies and systems
• Supercomputers

The mission aims to establish 60 radio sonde/radio wind (RS/RW) stations, 50 doppler weather radars (DWR), 100 disdrometers, 25 radiometers, ten wind profilers, one urban testbed, one ocean Research station, one process testbed, and ten marine automatic weather stations with upper air observation.

Mission Mausam: Why is it needed?

Tropical weather forecasting, according to the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), remains challenging because of the complexity of atmospheric processes and limitations in present observation and model resolution.

Observational data is relatively sparse, both temporally and spatially, and the horizontal resolution of Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models, currently at 12 kilometres, makes it difficult to accurately forecast small-scale weather events in India, it said

At the same time, climate change is leading to more chaotic weather patterns, which can lead to isolated heavy rainfall and localised droughts, posing simultaneous flooding and drought challenges. Cloudbursts, thunderstorms, lightning, and storms are among the least understood weather events in India.

The ministry said understanding these complex patterns needs in-depth knowledge of physical processes occurring within and outside clouds, on the surface, in the upper atmosphere, over oceans, and in polar regions.

This calls for high-frequency observations at the ground level and across the earth system with improved spatial and vertical resolutions to monitor the earth's dynamic systems effectively and increasing the horizontal resolution of NWP models from 12 kilometres to six kilometres to generate panchayat-level forecasts, it said.

Dr M Ravichandran, Secretary, MoES, said that Mission Mausam will improve forecasts on both spatial and temporal scales and air quality data and help strategise weather management in the long run.

"By March 2026, we are looking at installing a wider network of radars, wind profilers, and radiometers for better observations. We also look forward to better understanding the physical processes and the science of weather forecasting, " he said, adding, "There will be improved data assimilation with increased ingestion of the observations. We will also fuse physics-based numerical models and data-driven AI/ML to improve the forecasts. We would witness more innovations, R&D and atmospheric science advancements."

Mission Mausam will directly benefit various sectors such as agriculture, defence, environment, disaster management, aviation, power, tourism, shipping, water resources, transport, health, and energy. It would also improve data-driven decision-making in areas such as road and rail transport, urban planning, offshore operations, and environmental monitoring, the government said.