New Delhi, Jan. 15 -- The Centre plans to install 200 new Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) across Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Pune in 2026 to strengthen urban weather monitoring and improve forecast accuracy, minister of earth sciences Jitendra Singh said on Thursday.

The additional stations will focus on capturing micro-climate variations that cause extreme events such as heatwaves, cloudbursts and urban flooding. India currently has 1,008 AWS operating nationwide.

AWS are self-operating systems that use sensors to measure temperature, humidity, pressure, wind, and rainfall. The data is transmitted for real-time forecasting, research, and disaster management. This improves network density, reliability, and accuracy by reducing human err...