VISAKHAPATNAM: The livelihoods of many farmers across Andhra Pradesh are affected due to a lack of real-time weather updates- this simple idea urged Sai Praneeth, popularly known as ‘AP Weatherman’ to provide real-time weather forecasts for all districts in Andhra Pradesh.
The 24-year-old software engineer’s social media presence has helped several rural and urban people as well. Praneeth provides daily and weekly weather forecasts. Most of his followers on YouTube and Facebook, in particular, comprises farmers.
Praneeth also provides information via a call to some farmer associations from Rayalaseema, East Godavari region.
“One day I saw some Telugu channels reporting that there will 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 explained that the primary aim of AP Weatherman is to prevent the loss of livelihood for farmers due to climate change.
Praneeth carefully analyses and breaks down the data in simpler terms so that it helps farmers.
He explained that while there are several websites run by the government and private organizations, making it difficult to comprehend the data provided by many. “Furthermore, there various websites for each district. I study all the data and compile it,” he said. He often finds himself making explanatory forecast videos using digital maps etc with micro messages in both Telugu and English
“I spend more time on AP Weatherman work than on my job,” he says.
AP Weatherman is the pandemic brainchild of Praneeth, it began in August 2020. At work, Praneeth learned the coding languages- Java and Python. Using this, he has written an automated code that helps him gather relevant weather data from various sites and which he compiles and posts on social media handles.
“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 currently resides in Tirupati. Throughout the rest of the day, whenever he gets a break from work, he turns to Twitter and Facebook to provide timely updates.
Praneeth is a self-learned weather blogger. His curiosity is deep-rooted to times when he was in school and was curious about the nature of the clouds. Since
then, he has taught himself about various climate sciences and phenomena by reading books and news. Not only does he provide daily and weekly weather updated but by using concepts like ‘numeric weather modelling’, Praneeth analyses how the weather will be in the upcoming days/weeks.
“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 have helped them
make informed decisions given the climate change,” he says. The work that he has done- has been appreciated and recorded in the UN Habitat Journal which was published 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.
What began with 10 followers initially, AP Weatherman now has around 6k subscribers of YouTube, 23K subscribers on Facebook, and 6K followers of Twitter.