Tirupati Weather Blogger Gives Accurate Climate Updates For Farmers' Benefit

Tirupati: A lack of real-time weather updates has harmed the lives of many farmers across Andhra Pradesh. This simple concept prompted Sai Praneeth, also known as "AP Weatherman," to provide real-time weather forecasts to all the districts in Andhra Pradesh.

The 24-year-old software engineer's social media presence has aided a number of people in both rural and metropolitan areas. Praneeth offers weather forecasts on a daily and weekly basis. Farmers, in particular, make up a majority of his YouTube and Facebook followers.

Praneeth also provides information to various farmer groups in the Rayalaseema and East Godavari regions via phone calls.

"One day I saw some Telugu channels reporting that there will be no rain, while some reported that it will rain. Many farmers were supposedly confused. It did rain and many crops were damaged," he said.

He stated that the main goal of AP Weatherman is to protect farmers from losing their livelihood as a result of climate change.

Praneeth thoroughly examines and simplifies the data in such a way that it is useful to farmers.

He said that while there are several government and private-sector websites, it is difficult to understand the data supplied by many of them. "Furthermore, there  are various websites for each district. I study all the data and compile it," he said. He frequently finds himself producing explanatory forecast videos with tiny messages in both Telugu and English, utilising digital maps and other tools.

"I spend more time on AP Weatherman work than on my job," he says.

Praneeth's pandemic brainchild, branded 'AP Weatherman,' began in August of 2020. Praneeth picked up coding languages like Java and Python at work. Using this, he created an automated algorithm that allows him to collect pertinent meteorological data from a variety of sources, which he then combines and shares on social media accounts.

"I work a 10-5 job, work from home. I wake up and upload a weather update video on YouTube first thing in the morning," he says.

Praneeth is now based in Tirupati. Throughout the day, anytime he has a break from work, he uses Twitter and Facebook to keep up with the latest news.

Praneeth is a self-taught weather blogger. His passion for clouds dates back to his school days when he was fascinated by the phenomenon.

He's been reading books and articles since then to educate himself on various climate sciences and occurrences. Praneeth not only provides daily and weekly weather updates, but he also predicts how the weather will be in the next day’s/weeks utilising ideas such as "numeric weather modelling."

"I enjoy blogging and making weather forecast videos. The best part is when some farmers reach out to me and tell me how the information I provided, helped them make informed decisions given the climate change," he says.

His efforts were recognised and documented in the United Nations Habitat Journal, which was released in June 2021."It is my biggest achievement. I want to keep doing this for as long as possible- and help farmers and anyone in general," he says.

AP Weatherman has about 6k YouTube subscribers, 23K Facebook subscribers, and 6K Twitter followers after starting with just 10 followers.