Bhubaneswar: The IIT-Bhubaneswar claimed to have developed a technology to accurately predict rainfall, particularly in cases of downpours, with an adequate lead time.

The technology was developed by integrating the output from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model into a deep learning (DL) model, the institute said in a statement on Monday.

The institute has carried out studies using retrospective cases over the complex terrain of Assam (highly vulnerable to severe flooding) during June 2023 and over the state of Odisha where heavy rainfall events are highly dynamic in nature due to the landfall of multiple intense rain-bearing monsoon low-pressure systems.

Between June 13 and 17, 2023, Assam experienced severe flooding due to heavy rainfall.

"The DL model was able to more accurately predict the spatial distribution and intensity of rainfall across at districts scale," it claimed..

The research employed the WRF model to generate initial weather forecasts in real-time, which were then refined using the DL model," it said.

This method allowed for a more detailed analysis of rainfall patterns, incorporating a spatio-attention module to better capture the intricate spatial dependencies in the data.

In Assam, the model displays prediction accuracy that is nearly double that of traditional ensemble models at a district level with a lead time of upto 96 hours, showcasing its remarkable performance, the institute statement said.