tech2 News Staff

The Andhra Pradesh Varuna App was launched by the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu in the presence of Isro chairman AS Kiran Kumar. The app is the result of a collaboration between the State Planning department, Isro and a technology partner known as Vassar labs. Isro provides frequently updated, and at times real time inputs of meteorological information, including rainfall, wind speed velocity, temperature and humidity. The application was a result of one of three MoUs signed between Isro and the Andhra Pradesh Government.

Vassar labs, which is named after the street in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where IoT (Internet of Things) was first conceptualised, provides inputs to the application from Automatic Weather Stations and Ground Water Piezometers across the state. There is a high density of these ground monitoring stations. Vassar labs has also developed the application and is the publisher on the store. The title of the application on the homescreen is "AP Weather Forecast".

The application has a simple to use, easy to understand, minimalistic interface and is available in two languages, English and Telugu. The app doesn't provide any information for a location outside Andhra Pradesh, but you can pick a location within Andhra Pradesh from within the app. For each location, there is information on temperature, wind speed, rainfall, humidity and ground water levels. The wind speed direction is indicated with a static arrow, with north being straight up. The temperature measurement also has a reading that combines the heat index and wind chill factor, which is referred to as "feels like".

The forecasts are available for the next twenty four hours. The weather information is updated every six hours, but there is a demand for more granular updates, approaching real time information. There is a weather forecast for the next two to eight days as well. The only way to look at historical meteorological information is to use the trends section, that shows the fluctuations in the various readings over the course of the previous five days.

A section on the bottom has a message from the CM that is updated from time to time. The current message asks for villagers to dig more ponds to increase the groundwater levels. The entire message is contained within the small bar at the bottom, and it cannot be expanded. The application has been designed considering the needs of those living in rural and remote areas. The Andhra Pradesh Varuna App is a free application, and available only on the Android Play Store as of now.